Stars on the Horizon
by foxtree43
Summary: Years after the events of Phantom Planet, Danny's fame has become more manageable. Now attending college in Florida, all those adventures from his first year of ghost powers have been all but forgotten. Until one perfectly normal morning, when he wakes up in his fourteen-year-old body in the middle of Wisconsin.
1. Chapter 1

_Years after the events of Phantom Planet, Danny's fame has become more manageable. Now attending college in Florida, all those adventures from his first year of ghost powers have been all but forgotten. Until one perfectly normal morning, when he wakes up in his fourteen-year-old body in the middle of Wisconsin._

Rated K+, but it may go up to T. Only canon ships are going to be used; everything else is totally platonic. Against my better judgment, I am posting this chapter before I'm completely done writing the story. I at least know exactly how everything's going to play out, so that's a plus, and I should be able to update regularly. Here's hoping. For those of you who followed me for my two Dragonball Z oneshots: Don't worry! I'm working on a multi-chapter story for that fandom, too.

Anyway, this is my spin on a TUE fic, essentially. I thought it might be more interesting if it was canon, and if Danny wasn't busy wallowing in grief the whole time. Plus, it kind of sucks that everyone pretty much forgot all about Vlad after he was left in space. Here's my attempt at changing that.

I know I'm being confusing, but just… read. It'll make sense.

Enjoy!

* * *

_You swore and said,_

"_We are not, we are not shining stars."_

_This I know,_

'_Cause I never said we are._

_Though I've never been through hell like that,_

_I've closed enough windows to know you can never look back._

_If you're lost and alone,_

_Or you're sinking like a stone,_

_Carry on._

_May your past be the sound_

_Of your feet upon the ground and,_

_Carry on._

- "Carry On" by _fun._

* * *

**Chapter 1**

In retrospect, Danny probably should have known immediately when he woke up that morning that something was very, very wrong.

When consciousness began working its way into his mind, he fought against it, as he always did. Sure, he knew he had an exam today, and he also knew his professor did not allow make-ups for anything short of a funeral. He snorted and thought to himself, still in the groggy state somewhere between sleep and wakefulness,_ Please, a funeral probably wouldn't even cut it. My whole family would have to burst into flames before he let me make up a stupid test._ He rolled over onto his stomach and wrapped one arm around a pillow, burying his face into it.

Yes, he knew he had to get up, but his bed just felt so _comfortable_… It felt so much warmer than it usually did.

Maybe that should have been his first clue.

His face contorted in a tired scowl when he remembered that his alarm had not gone off yet. So either he had accidentally woken up in the early hours of the morning, or the alarm had never gone off and he was already late for the exam.

The latter thought sent a quick spike of panic through his chest, and he opened one eye to look at the clock on his nightstand, keeping the other half of his face still buried in the pillow. The open eye blinked after a moment, and his brow furrowed.

He sighed in frustration, turning to let his face be smothered by the pillow again, and then he placed both palms on the mattress and pushed himself up. The multitude of cracks that usually sounded from his spine—a souvenir from five years of fighting ghosts—never happened, and maybe that should have been his second clue. Instead he craned his neck to get a good look at his surroundings, fully expecting his confusion to fade away with the early morning drowsiness.

It didn't.

He leaned back so he was sitting on his knees on the mattress and continued to look around as he scratched the back of his head, his eyes narrowed. Okay, this was weird.

Where the heck was he?

This was definitely not his dorm. For one, he was alone and sitting on the only bed in the room, a four poster at least twice the size of his standard-issue university mattress in a bedroom even more massive. The walls were painted a pale gold, with pristine white trim along the floor and ceiling. The plush carpet was forest green and absolutely spotless, and the only decorations consisted of a lone painting of a field of flowers hanging on the wall. It was a stark contrast from his hardwood floor and poster-covered walls back at college.

He was beginning to think he had been flying in his sleep and that he had somehow wound up in some stranger's room when his gaze fell on a single picture frame on the nightstand. He blinked, eyebrows rising in genuine surprise.

_Well this definitely disproves that theory,_ he thought to reached over to pick it up, fumbling across the pile of pillows—_Six pillows? Who the heck uses six pillows?_—and pulled the picture closer. His head cocked to the side. "Huh," he mused aloud under his breath, "I didn't even know I still had this thing."

It was a photo of him with his parents, his sister, and of course, Sam and Tucker. It had been taken back when he was fourteen, all of them in the front of his house in Amity Park. He could barely help the way the corner of his mouth tugged up in a small grin, and he wondered what they all might be doing right now. His parents he had spoken with two nights ago on the phone, and his sister never stopped with the constant texts, but Sam and Tucker… He sighed and leaned over the mountain of pillows again, placing the photo down on the nightstand. He could always visit Tuck if he ever missed his best friend, but he and Sam had barely spoken since he had broken up with her at the end of their senior year. Maybe it was seeing that photo of them all together and happy, but thinking of their break-up sent a stab of pain to his gut that had not been there before.

Quickly he shook his head. That was not the issue right now. If that photo was here, then him being in this room was not some random occurrence. He was definitely here for a reason.

"So why don't I remember anything?" he asked himself aloud, and he bit the inside of his cheek in thought, glancing around the mostly bare room.

He could not sit here wondering, though; he had to investigate. So he detangled himself from the blankets, swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, still marveling over the huge room with its too-high ceiling and its too-clean floor. He padded across the carpet in his bare feet and quickly opened the first door he found, which just so happened to lead to a bathroom. Crossing his arms over his chest, Danny silently scanned over the bathroom for any clues as to where he might be, but aside from being very upscale and so clean it seemed to belong to one of those home improvement magazines, the bathroom was just as generic as any other.

Danny let out a frustrated sigh and swung the door back into place, spinning on his heel to approach the closet. He gripped the handles of the double doors and pulled them open together, his narrowed eyes sweeping over the contents of the spacious walk-in closet.

It was empty except for an open duffel bag on the floor. There were some clothes spilling out of the opening and a pair of sneakers haphazardly thrown on top. Danny grinned. This definitely looked more like his handiwork than the immaculate bedroom did.

After changing into some normal clothes and pulling the sneakers on, Danny left the closet and leaned his back against the closed doors until they clicked shut. He turned his gaze to the only door he had yet to try, the door that surely led out of this bedroom and into the rest of the house. He bit his lip. Did he really want to meet whoever had brought him here just yet? He certainly had a lot of enemies, and waking up in a strange house with no recollection of having come here was just screaming "psychotic ghost scheming to kill-or-otherwise-destroy the ghost boy."

He sighed, having made up his mind. It would be better to know the situation better before he tried to have a run-in with whoever was responsible for him being here. He closed his eyes as white rings appeared around his waist, and he relished in the familiar feeling of them transforming him into his ghost half. When he opened his glowing green eyes, he immediately became intangible and shot up through the ceiling.

He had assumed that the bedroom he had woken up in was on the second floor, so he had not expected to fly through another floor before he reached the roof. And he certainly had not expected to fly through _seven._ It was room after room after room, each slightly different than the last but all of them too plain to give a clue as to where he might be.

When sunlight finally shone in his eyes, he relinquished his intangibility and gently touched down on the roof. Or, at least, he tried to gently touch down. The roof was so steeply slanted that he nearly lost his balance, and so he decided to settle with floating. He crossed his arms over his chest as he surveyed his surroundings. There were acres and acres of forest surrounding the building, and the closest neighbors Danny could see, even from way up here, were in a city whose skyline he could just make out on the horizon.

So he was not in any place that he recognized, but at least he was on Earth. That ruled out crazy ghosts, or at least made the possibility much less likely.

He ran a hand over his face, pausing when his hand covered his mouth and locking his eyes with the city in the distance. It was pretty far away, but certainly not too far for him. He had flown much farther under much more dire circumstances in his lifetime.

And besides, he could do for a little free flying to clear his head.

He smirked and took off into the sky.

* * *

After flying as fast as he could over miles of forest—which somehow did not feel as fast as usual, but he chalked it up to still being a bit tired—he finally touched down on a bustling city sidewalk.

And what happened next was even stranger than the rest of his morning had been.

A woman screamed loud enough to wake the dead, and Danny's muscles instinctively tensed in preparation to help her against whatever had caused her to scream, but then someone else screamed, and someone else, too.

"GHOST!"

Those that were not scrambling to get away were all pointing directly at him, all with looks of horror on their faces. His head moved back and forth as he tried to look at all of them, frowning in confusion. "Hey, wait!" he began, waving his hands to try and get them to listen to him, but they all seemed much more preoccupied with running. If anything his movements only heightened the panic of everyone rushing around below. "Don't you people recognize me? It's just me, Danny Phantom!" he yelled.

No one answered, and the screams continued unabated. This was crazy! Why was everyone running from him? For Pete's sake, he could even swear he had just heard someone yell _Inviso-Bill_.

Did these people really not know who he was? A look of determination fell into his features, and he flew higher up into the air until he could see everyone in a two block radius.

"HEY!"

It was a far cry from his ghostly wail, but his voice still rippled across the pavement like something tangible and sent shock waves through the air.

Everyone down below on the ground froze in terror, their wide eyes staring up at him as though he was about to kill every last one of them, and he shouted, "Why are you all running from me?"

He glanced around at all of their terrified faces in search of an answer. They all just stared up at him, daring not to move a muscle for fear of attack, and somewhere a little kid started to cry. Danny groaned again. "You know what? Just, never mind."

In a flash, he was invisible, and he ignored the collective gasp from the crowd who had just seen him vanish into thin air as he flew into a nearby alleyway. After he landed, he took a furtive glance around the area to be sure that he was alone and transformed back into his human half.

"Jeez," he mused aloud as he stepped out of the alley and into the street. "Wonder what's with them?"

It did not take long for him to decide that the issue was not worth his time. Who cared if a bunch of people in some random city _somehow_ had never heard of Danny Phantom? Inwardly he shrugged as he looked to his right and then to his left, in search of somewhere to get information. A sign to his left advertised a small convenience store. _That'll work,_ he thought, and he headed down the street the old-fashioned way in lieu of flying, his hands in the pockets of the sweat jacket he had found in that duffel bag.

When he pushed open the glass door to the convenience store and a bell chimed, he walked right up to the counter. The girl standing behind it was about his age, and pretty, too. She was taller than him, though, something he was not used to. He smiled as he made eye contact with her, casually leaning against the counter as he said, "Hey, I'm Danny."

She raised an eyebrow at him, then quickly scanned her eyes from his head down to his feet and back up before responding, "Um, hi?"

He blinked. _Okay, not the friendly type then_.

He cleared his throat in an attempt to break the awkward silence and continued, "Uh, yeah, I was just wondering if you could tell me what town we're in," he explained. "I got a little lost."

"You're in Park Falls," she replied simply, returning her attention to the magazine lying open on the counter.

"Um," Danny began, "and that's in...?"

She looked up from her magazine and raised an eyebrow at him again. "You really are lost, aren't you, kid? You're like in the middle of Wisconsin."

There was a pause after that, in which that information sunk in and Danny's eyes widened.

Wisconsin? But that was so far away from... everything! It was a least a three day drive from home, and even further from his college in Florida. How the heck had he wound up here?

"You okay?" the cashier asked suddenly, jerking him from his thoughts, and he nodded shakily.

"Uh, y-yeah... I'm fine."

His heart skipped a beat when he remembered the huge building he had woken up in, with its spacious rooms and California king beds, and green and gold everywhere, and... _Take it easy, Fenton,_ he scolded himself._ There's no way. They tore that place down years ago. There's like, a development of houses there now, or something._

That served to calm his nerves a little bit, especially when he added to himself,_ You're more likely to run into Vlad himself then wake up in his mansion, and he's out floating in space somewhere._

He took a breath to really calm himself, and although he was still beyond confused, he decided he should leave before this cashier really thought he was crazy.

"You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," he lied with a nod, and he turned to walk away, but something stopped him. He did a double take, and locked his gaze on the small pad of paper on the counter. It was red with yellow lettering advertising the words, 'Born after 09-21-1987? No cigarettes!' He blinked, and then let out a nervous chuckle as he pointed at the calendar. "What, is the legal smoking age in Wisconsin, like, five years over everyone else or something?"

Now she was looking at him even more strangely than before. "No..." she began slowly. "It's eighteen."

Danny had a sinking feeling he would not like the answer to this. "But 18 years after 1987 would be..."

The girl responded matter-of-factly, speaking slowly as though he was a five-year-old when she said, "2005."

His jaw dropped, and only one thought passed his mind. He barely managed to choke out the words, "Do you have a bathroom?"

She pointed toward the back corner of the store, and he bolted before she could say another word. He tore the bathroom door open and slammed it shut behind him, scrambling toward the mirror, his hands perched on each side of the sink. He stared wide-eyed at his reflection.

_That settles it. I'm dreaming._

Danny reached up and let his fingers trace along the line of his jaw, feeling perfectly smooth skin. No stubble. The same hand moved up and ran through his too-long hair while the other remained braced against the sink.

He turned on the faucet and splashed the cold water in his face. It did not help. He was still wide awake and definitely not dreaming.

He bit his lip and transformed, watching as the rings made his t-shirt disappear, leaving behind his trademark black and white jumpsuit. He gulped, placing his hand over the emblem on his chest. At least something was still normal.

How had he not noticed this earlier? He was so much shorter and _scrawny_ too, and… He had barely made the trip here in half an hour, a flight that he should have easily been able to accomplish in ten minutes!

_It's because I could barely hit 120 miles an hour back then…_

"Alright, Fenton," he muttered determinedly as he gripped both sides of the sink and looked himself in the eye. "Here's what's not gonna happen: You're not gonna panic. There has to be some explanation to this."

He broke eye contact with his reflection and stared at the still running faucet, wracking his brain for an explanation. How could a nineteen-year-old college student fall asleep in his dorm one night, and wake up the next morning five years younger?

_If it really is 2005, _he reminded himself,_ Plasmius isn't in space yet. That means his mansion would still be here. That's where I woke up._

But why in the world would he be in a mansion that belonged to his arch-enemy? Especially when that enemy was still on Earth!

There were just so many unanswered questions, all with answers he could not even fathom. He had almost nothing to go on, no clues whatsoever.

He knew one thing, though; he could not stay here. He raised his determined gaze up to the mirror. He needed answers, and if they were not here in Wisconsin, they would be at home.

Backing away from the sink, he took in a breath of air and vanished on the spot in a puff of green smoke.

* * *

When he reappeared, it was in Amity Park. He was floating in the middle of his old bedroom, and he immediately and unwillingly transformed into his human half and collapsed onto the floor. He sat there on his hands and knees, panting heavily as he attempted to refill his lungs, sweat breaking out on the back of his neck.

He had mastered teleportation when he was seventeen, and the action had become second nature over the years, like shooting a blast of ghostly energy from his palms. Granted he only used it when the distance was too far for flying—there had not been too many fights that required such quick movement in recent years—but even though it was not an everyday thing, it was still no sweat.

In his fourteen-year-old body, though, "no sweat" was the furthest from the truth. He might know the technique to teleport himself across far distances, but evidently his body could barely handle it without falling apart.

When his breath finally came back, he muttered a curse and scolded himself for being so stupid. Getting himself killed by sapping away every ounce of his body's energy would not help anything. Slowly, very slowly, he stood on his shaky legs and attempted to crack his back, only becoming more frustrated when he realized he couldn't.

He sighed, stepping toward the door to the rest of the house. As he placed his hand on the doorknob he glanced around at his room. Why was it so… clean? There were no dirty clothes littering the floor, no crumpled up bags from the Nasty Burger. He shook his head. He would find out soon enough. "Mom? Dad?" he called, wincing at the sound of his own voice. It was barely noticeable before, but now the high-pitched inflections his voice had were impossible to ignore. He opened the door, glancing down the hallway at his sister's room. "Jazz?"

He bit the inside of his cheek. Maybe everyone was out? He tried to remember exactly what he had been doing on September 21st in 2005, but it was no use. He had no idea where he was supposed to be, let alone where his parents and sister might be.

Knowing his parents, though, he decided the basement would be his best bet.

He opened Jazz's door anyway, just in case she was in there. The room was empty, the bed a mess of covers and a few books lying open on her desk. He shrugged and continued downstairs.

The moment his foot touched the bottom stair, he knew there were people in the lab, and seconds later he could tell they were definitely not his parents. His brow furrowed.

"Check this out," a voice called, its echo muffled by the basement walls.

"That's evidence," another voice responded sternly, this one deeper than the first. He sounded older, and his voice rumbled and carried through the house, much easier to hear than the other. "Put it down."

"Ah, come on…" the younger one's voice trailed off, and he said something else indistinguishable. Danny made his way across the kitchen to the basement entrance, tilting his head to the side and trying to make out his words. "You really think the Fentons could have caused this?"

"Honestly? No," the other answered. "They were crazy, but I can't believe they were actually dangerous. Whatever caused that explosion _might_ have been a chemical accident, but until that's proven we have to address every possibility."

"Like the Fentons accidentally blowing up a whole city block with one of these… what-do-ya-call-'ems?" the younger one asked. There was a clang of metal on metal.

"That, _or_ someone tampering with their weapons," the other corrected. "You heard the report from those witnesses, Vince. Danny Phantom was there, and that means the Fentons probably went guns-a-blazing on him. One of their weapons could have backfired, and the Fentons may have been a lot of things, but faulty mechanics they were _not_."

"Never thought of that," Vince answered. There was a pause and the sound of them moving things around, and Danny was so confused by what they were saying that he stayed where he was, hoping to hear something that might clear up this whole situation.

"I'll tell ya," Vince spoke up after a while, "I won't miss the Fentons… but it sucks about the kid."

The older one murmured his agreement. "Well, let's get out of here," he said. "We've got enough friggin' evidence. No prints other than the Fentons', and nothing weirder in here than what's normal for a couple of ghost hunters. Come on."

Danny heard them begin walking up the stairs, and almost without thinking about it he made himself invisible. He watched as the two made their way up toward him, each holding a plastic bag of small items from the lab. The older one was big, especially in his stomach, and balding. He was probably around his forties. The other, Vince, was only about Danny's age—well, Danny's real age, not fourteen—and had his free hand running through his thick head of brown hair. Vince walked within inches of where Danny stood, and when he spoke again it made Danny jump.

"Lucky for him he's friends with Vlad Masters though, huh?" Vince continued. "That castle can't be a bad place to live."

"The only blessing in that kid going to Wisconsin is that it's far away from here. All those damn reporters will leave the poor kid alone there, at least."

Vince chuckled. "I think Masters being around _period_ scared off plenty of the reporters. Y'know there's a rumor he paid off every newspaper company in the country to stay away from the kid?"

"Yeah, and there's also a rumor he blew up a reporter's camera by shooting lasers out of his eyes," the older one responded. "The lady from _Amity Park Weekly_ swore she saw it herself. Don't believe everything you hear, kid."

That was the last thing Danny heard before they walked outside and shut the door behind them, and he lost his invisibility, staring dumbfounded in their direction.

* * *

Ten minutes later Danny stood on the sidewalk, the chilly autumn breeze cutting through his jumpsuit like butter. He wrapped his arms around himself as he stared ahead at the destroyed remains of what had once been a fast food restaurant. The charred sign on the ground, cracked in half but still recognizable, left no doubt as to what this place had been.

"The Nasty Burger," Danny muttered under his breath, his eyes focused on the wreckage. The conversation he had overheard in his house had left him with suspicions, and now they had just been confirmed. "I'm not in the past…" he whispered to himself, "I'm in an alternate timeline."

The words sounded strange coming out of his mouth, but he knew they were true. For whatever reason, he had gone to bed last night and woken up in the horrible version of reality that he had once fought for his life to prevent. He had woken up in a world where his family and friends were dead. He shuddered, and it had nothing to do with the cold. He stepped forward, invisible boots crunching on dead leaves and ashes as he approached the demolished remains of the Nasty Burger condiment vat. When he reached the giant, ruptured metal vat he reached out, almost expecting it not to really be there, but his hand met cold metal. When he pulled his hand away, he looked down at the ash that had rubbed off on his glove, a smudge of black floating in midair.

So the explosion happened. Of course he had forgotten that the CAT Test had been in September; why would he remember something so trivial? He had gotten into a mess involving—as Sam had often put it—his jerky older self, and he had gotten out of it. He beat the bad guy, no one died, and he learned his lesson about trying to cheat his way into a promising future.

And he _had_ learned his lesson. He had never so much as glanced at another student's test since then, and he had gotten into a good college on his own steam. There, problem solved, lesson learned.

"So why am I here?" he asked aloud. He made himself intangible so that the soot fell from his hand, his eyes following the thin, smoky trail as it fell silently to the ground.

His eyes widened when he caught a glimpse of green to his left. No, that wasn't… it couldn't be, could it? He stepped toward it and crouched down, brushing away the ash to reveal the Fenton Thermos. He picked up the device and rolled it over in his palm. The thermos was dented all over, and there was a huge crack spanning from bottom to top, right through its side. Had the explosion caused that, or…? What? Danny sighed and dropped the thermos. It landed with a thud in the soot, and Danny stood straight, having decided that the thermos was not important.

Getting back to his own time was, and luckily, he knew someone who could help.

This kind of thing was right in Clockwork's area of expertise.

**End Chapter 1**


	2. Chapter 2

Let me just say one thing.

I am a_stounded_ by all you wonderful reviewers and how many people have already added this story to their favorites and/or their story alerts! Thank you, everyone! Oh, and a special thank you to VampireFrootloopsRule for pointing out the error I made in the first chapter. I just went back and fixed it.

Anyway, on to the story. I like this chapter a lot, even if it's been a royal pain in my backside and I've had to rewrite it twice.

Also, I'm changing the rating to T. This is mostly because there will be some action-filled fight scenes later and what have you, but also because there will be a small amount of cursing. Not much, and I'll steer clear of the F-bomb and other high-intensity curse words, hence the rating not going past T. This is just what I think is a necessary warning.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 2**

"Clockwork?"

Danny floated down onto the edge of the floating slab of cobblestone ground upon which stood the lair of the master of time. Inches behind his heels the ground dropped off and gave way to the endless abyss of the Ghost Zone; twenty yards before him pearlescent black walls shot up hundreds of feet into the air, interrupted every so often by a shimmering green windowpane. Set into the highest tower was a huge, ticking clock that looked like it was pulled right out of 15th century Europe.

Danny frowned, his forehead creasing in worry as he craned his neck to look up at the clock tower. That wasn't right. He had been here dozens of times over the years since he had met Clockwork, and not once had that clock simply ticked forward so normally for so long. Usually it would alternate sporadically between ticking forward and ticking backward, and the speed of its ticks would almost never match real time. Wasn't that the point of Clockwork's lair, after all? That it existed outside of time?

His gaze swept over the half dozen windows that were each illuminated by a flickering green candle—flickering on like _normal_ flames rather than standing still like the impossible emerald statues they usually were—and discomfort settled itself into the pit of his stomach. He didn't like this. He didn't like this one bit.

"Clockwork?" he called again, making his way to the castle. Almost without thinking about it he allowed the white rings to appear around his waist as he approached the entrance, and his human body passed through the huge double doors like they were nothing more than smoke. Just as his body cleared the doors, the sound of his footsteps began to intermingle with the chimes and ticks of hundreds of clocks. He scowled and threw his hands up over his ears, but there were so many and they were all so _loud_ that it barely helped. Not to mention he could still feel the vibrations in his feet.

That feeling in his stomach worsened a bit; every single clock in the building was ticking along with real time, and somehow Danny knew that could not mean anything good.

He jogged up to end of the entrance hall until he was standing in the huge, ceiling-less room at the center of the castle in which he had first met Clockwork. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted as loudly as his lungs would allow, _"Clockwork!"_

His voice bounced against the walls and echoed back to him, but nothing else answered his call.

Danny transformed again and pushed his white boots against the floor, soaring up into the air to investigate the rest of the room. As he floated amongst the giant gears and clocks, he realized that he had never come to Clockwork's lair and _not _been greeted by the master of time in this room. Clockwork was always watching over the time stream, or else he was floating around and checking on his numerous clocks for reasons Danny had never quite understood. Even if there was ever a time when Clockwork left his lair, he had always been there whenever Danny showed up. He would always know when Danny would plan to come here—after all, as the spirit never failed to remind Danny every so often, Clockwork knew everything—and so surely he knew that Danny was floating around his castle now, confused and searching for him in the hopes of finding some answers.

… So where was he?

Danny tried calling out a few more times, ignoring the logic ringing in the back of his mind. If Clockwork wanted to answer him, the spirit would have made his presence known already, but Danny Fenton was nothing if not stubborn.

"Come on, Clockwork!" he shouted, fists clenched at his sides as he touched down on the floor again. He glanced around at the screens scattered about the room, noting that every single one of them was empty, simply filled with that green swirling background that was always there whenever Clockwork was not using them. He glared at the air around him and cried, "I know you can hear me!"

He cupped his hands around his mouth again and yelled, "I need your help!"

_GONG!_

The sound reverberated through the walls and the floor, and Danny jumped, a startled yell escaping him and his heart suddenly pounding painfully in his chest. Half a second later, though, he groaned in frustration.

_GONG!_

"Stupid clock," he muttered. He crossed his arms over his chest angrily and kicked at the floor, adding as the main clock gonged away in its tower, "and its stupid loud-ass chimes."

Every other clock began to sound their respective alarms to signal the new hour, though none of them could drown out the sound of the biggest clock sending out its ear-shattering gongs. Danny sighed, tapping his boot against the floor as he waited for the clock to finish ringing out the hour. Silently he counted as the clock chimed, and when the gongs finally ceased, he raised an eyebrow and automatically reached for his phone in the pocket of his jumpsuit. _Seven,_ he thought to himself, _but there's no way it's seven o-clock._

His fingers wrapped around a tiny flip phone, and when he pulled it out of his pocket he simply blinked at the little outdated device—surprised for only a second or two that his new touchscreen phone had not been there—before he sighed in defeat and flipped it open. In front of a background picture of a fourteen-year-old Tucker making some strange face into the camera, the clock read "12:52 PM." He stared at the time long enough for it to change to "12:53 PM" before he snapped the phone shut and tucked it back into his pocket, staring up at the floating gears and clocks all over the room.

He stood there for a few minutes, biting the inside of his cheek as he thought, wondering why his phone had not stopped measuring the time when he had stepped into the castle. He gazed up at the regularly turning gears that he had always assumed ran the main clock outside, watching as they turned a few degrees with each passing second.

No, none of this was normal for the lair of the master of time.

His eyes roamed over the room, but as he expected, Clockwork did not just pop up out of the ether like he sometimes tended to do. Danny was still alone. He frowned and quietly asked the empty room, "What are you playing at, Clockwork?"

* * *

Over an hour and a half Danny had spent in Clockwork's lair, according to the clock on his phone. He had spent over ninety minutes simply walking around that massive central room of the castle-like lair, hoping (but at the same time sincerely doubting) he could stall for long enough so the master of time would return from… _wherever_ he was.

That did not happen. Really, Danny couldn't say he was surprised, but that did not make it any less frustrating.

There was one strange thing, though, that had happened while Danny was searching the castle. At exactly 1:52, the clocks all began chiming to signal the coming of yet another hour. This time, though, the biggest clock only rang down six chimes from its tower. Danny had scratched his head in confusion and wondered whether or not he had miscounted the first time, but he was almost positive the clock had chimes seven times earlier. So the clocks were moving backward, then…?

But why on Earth would they be doing that? It aggravated Danny to no end that Clockwork could not just show himself and _tell_ Danny what the heck was going on, but if Danny knew the master of time, he knew that he would get some answers when Clockwork wanted him to get answers. And that was probably not going to happen any time soon.

He had flown straight home once he gave up on waiting for Clockwork, and now he was sitting in Jazz's bedroom on the edge of her bed, hunched over with his elbows on his knees and his head resting in his hands. Clockwork had not helped, and now he was at a complete and total loss.

What was he supposed to do without any help? How was he supposed to get back home, to his real home, without knowing how he had wound up here in the first place?

What if… What if Clockwork had nothing to do with this? Then what? How was he here, then? There was no way he could be dreaming, because everything around him was as real as real could be, and after he had teleported he had certainly felt real pain in his chest. Was he hallucinating?

He let out a frustrated sigh and rubbed his hands over his face. If this was a hallucination, then it was a _really_ detailed hallucination.

He raised his head from his hands, his eyes wandering around the room, and he caught sight of the picture frame on his sister's desk which held a picture of the two of them smiling at the camera together. Jazz would know what to do. She would have some book or another, somewhere, that would give her a hint as to what had happened. Either that or she would whip out some of her psychology or some supernatural theories she had read up on lately. Even seventeen-year-old Jazz, not just the adult version from his time, could come up with a way out of this. He was certain of that.

It made no difference, though. Talking to Jazz was not an option. Not because she was dead—Danny refused to wrap his mind around that—but because she was in another timeline. Somewhere, some _when_, Jazz was sitting in her dorm at Stanford, studying for the standardized test she needed to take to get into Harvard Medical School.

Danny grabbed the pillow off of her bed and hugged it to his chest. He felt childish, but as there was no one around to see him, he did it anyway. He let his head loll forward until it rested on the top of the pillow, and he inhaled slowly, surprised to discover that after five years, Jazz still used the same perfume. He always noticed when she wore it, thanks to his heightened senses that he had trained over the years, and that smell was oddly comforting. He wondered if Jazz had been wearing it when she drove off to the Nasty Burger to face his evil, older self…

He hastily clenched his teeth and wrestled his thoughts into his control.

_Shut up and focus on what's real, Fenton, or you're gonna lose it, _he ordered. _Jazz is not dead. Neither are Mom, Dad, Sam, and Tucker. They're all fine._

With nothing but memories as his evidence, it was difficult to hold onto that belief.

_Start with the easy stuff,_ he told himself. _My name is Danny Fenton. I graduated from Casper High in 2010 with a 90.6 grade point average. I took the CAT without cheating at all, and I scored a 1970. I live in a dorm at the University of Florida, and I'm an undecided major. My roommate's name is Dwight, and he's from New Jersey._

He took a shaky breath. _When I was fourteen I saved the world from a massive asteroid that would_ _have destroyed everything if it hit. Most of my enemies went a little easier on me after that, but there were still pretty big threats every now and then. I started dating Sam, and we were on-and-off all through high school until I told her we should try seeing other people when we went to college._

… _I'm still not sure how I feel about that, _he added. He wrinkled his nose and massaged his temples, trying to dull the headache that was rapidly forming behind his eyes. For some reason it was becoming increasingly difficult to concentrate. _She went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and she's studying social work with a minor in environmental studies. And then Tucker, he was the mayor of Amity Park for… two years? A little more than that, I think,_ he debated, and he let out a huff when the headache sent a sharp stab through his temple. _He's at MIT now. He was the only kid in Casper High to ever get accepted there, and that includes Jazz. Majoring in…_

He hissed through his teeth, thoughts cutting off abruptly as he began to focus on pressing into his forehead with the heels of his palms. It took a long time for the pain to subside, and when it did, he decided to stop trying to dredge up specifics from his memories. Instead he sat there on Jazz's bed, letting himself reminisce over whatever came to mind. He thought of the first time his dad had tried to help him fight ghosts, and he smirked. He had thought Jazz sucking him into the thermos three times was bad, but his dad had proved him wrong.

He thought of his mom always panicking when he was out past curfew. She would always send the boo-merang out to find him and, once she did, would always charge into his fights with a gun drawn. She had actually managed to save his butt a few times.

He sat there for a long time, letting his mind wander, and it actually helped to calm his nerves a bit. It had only felt like twenty minutes, but Jazz's alarm clock said had been close to two hours.

Then there was a knock on the door.

His head lifted off the pillow so quickly his neck cracked, staring at the door wide-eyed like a deer in headlights. Who would be knocking on Jazz's door if she was supposedly dead? It almost rose his hopes, made him think for a moment that he really had imagined all this and that someone was at the door looking for Jazz. It was a soft knock, like whoever was standing on the other side of that door was apprehensive, like they almost hoped he wouldn't answer.

He did, even though he felt ridiculous answering his sister's bedroom door as if it was his own.

"Uh… come in?"

The doorknob turned slowly, like whoever stood behind the door was purposely dragging out the process, and when the door finally opened, Danny wished he had kept his big fat mouth shut and just pretended there was no one in here. The pillow toppled off his lap and landed silently on the floor as he stood, backing a little further away from the door.

He knew that Vlad Masters was alive and still on Earth in this timeline, but seeing him here, now, not ten feet away after five years of absence… It was more nerve-wracking than Danny had ever expected.

Plasmius had scared him back then, genuinely scared him with the power he so easily held over Danny's head, and in a matter of seconds that all came flooding back. He saw Plasmius stalking forward to kill him after the destruction of his perfect clone. He saw Plasmius glaring at him with venom that could only be described as bloodlust. He saw Plasmius gripping his wrist and sending ghostly shocks through his entire body until the pain knocked him unconscious. Danny transformed instinctively, and he nearly cursed out loud when he heard that fear leak into his voice. "What—what are you doing here?"

The older hybrid stepped into the room, still in his human form and completely out of synch with the menacing image from Danny's memories. He looked hesitant, which was something Danny could not ever remember Plasmius being before, with his hands in the pockets of his slacks as he approached. It might have been disarming if it weren't for one thing.

Danny backed further into the dresser behind him. Jesus, had the guy always been this tall? Plasmius _towered_ over him. At least by a foot, Danny guessed, maybe more. He could not even guess whether he would be as tall as Vlad if this were the present.

Vlad's voice then broke the silence with the entirely too simple answer, "Looking for you."

Danny looked him up and down with his brow furrowed, wondering what was so different about the older hybrid right now that he just could not place. His hands were in his pockets, yes, and that was certainly strange for him. But no, it was something else. Five years had not dimmed Danny's memory enough for him not to know that the man standing in front of him had never acted so… normal. It was unsettling. Where was that arrogant pride that had always annoyed the crap out of him?

His eyes flicked up to meet his archenemy's gaze. "How did you know I was here?"

Plasmius shrugged, leaning against the doorframe in a way that was far too casual for Vlad Masters. "Let's call it a hunch, shall we?"

"Well…" Danny trailed off. He had no idea where to go from here. What does one say to his archenemy after five years of being sure that he was gone forever? He shook the thought away and asked, "What do you want?"

Vlad raised an eyebrow at him. "Isn't that obvious?" he asked, and Danny only shook his head in response. "I'm taking you back to Wisconsin, my boy."

Danny's eyes widened. No, no, no. That struck all the wrong notes in Danny's mind, and he was sure that Vlad could tell by the look on his face alone.

He took a step back, trying to put as much distance between them as his sister's small bedroom would allow. He may not have remembered much about the whole confrontation with his jerky older self all those years ago, but he certainly remembered_ how_ that evil version of him had come to be. "Uh… Look," he began, "I know this sounds weird, but… I can't."

Plasmius crossed his arms over his chest and asked, "What do you mean, you can't?"

"I just can't," Danny insisted, and now his back was against his sister's dresser. He fumbled for an explanation or some kind of excuse to get out of there, but nothing came to mind, especially not with his archenemy looking him straight in the eye with a calculating look on his face.

If his family and friends were really dead in this timeline, then he was already on his way to becoming that horrible version of himself. This was exactly the situation Clockwork had helped prevent so long ago, and it was happening, right here and right now. But he could still prevent it, right? All he had to do was stay away from Plasmius. "Uh…" Danny stalled, and then he gulped.

"Bye."

He disappeared, leaving only green smoke behind, and Plasmius had clearly not expected that kind of exit. When Danny disappeared he merely gaped at the empty space before him for a few seconds, and it was all the head start Danny needed. He reappeared only a few blocks away and immediately landed, his hand clutching his chest as he fought to regain his energy, wide eyes darting around in search of his pursuer. White rings appeared around his waist without his permission, the fatigue from teleporting too much to allow him to hold his ghost half. The teen panted as he jogged into the nearest alley, nearly tripping over his own feet before he dove behind a dumpster that completely cut him off from the view of the street. His back slumped against the wall, and he slid down until he was sitting, legs sprawled out in front of him.

_Okay Fenton,_ he decided as he fought to fill his lungs with much needed oxygen, _no more teleporting._

He knew that Vlad could teleport, too. Heck, Danny had gotten the idea from Vlad in the first place. He slowly pulled his legs toward himself until he was sitting on his knees, and cautiously peeked out from behind the dumpster.

He nearly had a heart attack when he saw Plasmius, in his ghost form, floating down the street and passing right by the alley. Danny fell backward, pressing his back against the wall and holding his breath in the hopes that Vlad had not seen or heard him.

"Daniel?" the older hybrid called from the street, his voice echoing in that eerie way that all ghosts' voices did. Danny heard a few people scream and run away from the ghost floating around out in the open, but neither he nor Vlad paid them any mind. The way Plasmius had spoken gave Danny the sinking feeling that the older hybrid knew exactly where he was and that the Plasmius was just buying time, but he shook that thought away as soon as it came. _There's no way,_ he told himself._ You're just freaking yourself out._

"Daniel, I know you can hear me."

He kept quiet, even though that sentence dipped his hopes down. So Vlad knew he was nearby. It could have been a trick. Plasmius had always been one for tricks, and that meant he might have no idea where Danny was. If Danny could just call his bluff, then maybe that would be the end of it. Maybe Plasmius would go away. Maybe he would never find Danny and would just give up.

Suddenly, his archenemy's voice sounded like it was right behind him, saying, "Come now, my boy, I'm only trying to—"

Danny reflexively jumped away, whirling around and shooting a ghost ray at his attacker, cutting him off midsentence. Vlad's back slammed against the brick wall, but Danny did not let up. He shot another blast and then another and another, still in his human form, firing until the bricks crumbled under the pressure and Plasmius was left in a pile of rubble.

He transformed and flew straight up, leaving Plasmius behind under the pile of bricks. Danny hoped that Vlad would be too disoriented from that attack to follow him right away, and that Danny could put enough distance between them before Plasmius—

"Listen to me!" he shouted indignantly, appearing out of nothing in front of Danny and cutting off his flight path, clearly intending to trip him up and gain the upper hand, but little did Vlad know that Danny had five extra years of ghost fighting experience under his belt. Out of instinct Danny did not stop, and instead he barreled straight into Vlad's chest, tackling him and diving for the ground at the highest speed his body would allow. "Daniel, s_top!_"

Danny ignored him and continued their rapid descent for the ground. He felt a jolt of electricity through his limbs for a split second—no doubt Vlad's attempt to make him lose his grip—but it made no difference. At that exact moment, just seconds before colliding with the asphalt below, Danny let go of Plasmius and flew intangibly through the ground. Although it was muffled by the dirt around him, Danny heard the unmistakable _boom _of something colliding with the ground above him. When he resurfaced he floated down until his feet were inches above the ground, turning to face where Plasmius had hit, and a tired grin spread over his face. It had worked exactly as he had hoped. Plasmius was lying in a crater formed by his landing, and the concrete around him was cracked and bent in a way that would have killed any normal human being.

Danny gently landed, his boot crunching on a dead leaf.

There was a groan from the crater, and first a gloved hand appeared at the edge of the crater, and then ever so slowly Plasmius climbed out of it until he was standing on firm ground, glaring pointedly at Danny and clutching his ribs. Danny had enough experience with these sorts of things to know that they were probably broken.

Oh, well. Danny knew they would heal.

Danny crossed his arms over his chest and glared at his archenemy. "Why don't you just leave me alone, Plasmius?" he shouted.

"Is that what you're suggesting?" responded Plasmius, a growl resonating under his words from the back of his throat. "I should just leave you to… whatever your plans are after this?"

"What do you care what I—?"

"Do _not_ give me that, boy!" yelled Plasmius, pointing with the hand that was not busy holding his ribs. He was glaring at Danny, but somehow there was no venom in his pupil-less red eyes. Whatever was there in its place, though, Danny had no idea. Plasmius continued, "You are fourteen years old, and your mother, your father, your sister, and your little friends are all dead! Do you really think I am daft enough to leave you alone right now?"

Danny suddenly felt himself bristle with anger. However justified it might be, Danny did not like Vlad's insistence that this timeline was real and that Danny's entire family was dead.

"Stop it, Plasmius," he growled, eyes narrowing dangerously. Before he could stop and think about how it would sound he spoke aloud the exact words that were playing through his mind. "They're not dead."

The reaction he received should have been expected. Plasmius suddenly looked like he had taken a punch to the stomach. The anger drained from his face, leaving behind a distressed expression that was several shades paler. When he spoke again his voice was quiet, like he really had no idea what he should say.

"What… What do you _mean_ they're not dead? Daniel," he began and transformed, standing there in his human form and looking at Danny like he thought the teen was completely out of his mind. "They are all dead. You saw the explosion yourself. We both…" his voice cut off, and he cleared his throat and continued with a little more determination in his voice, "We both saw their bodies."

"You—_UGH! _Plasmius, you don't understand!" Danny yelled, his hand gripping a fistful of his still white hair. Before he knew it he was ranting to Plasmius and saying things that he knew he should probably keep to himself, but it didn't really matter, did it? He was still mostly sure that none of this was real. It couldn't be real, but damned if he wasn't frustrated that he still had to experience it. He shouted, "It shouldn't be like this! This was all supposed to be prevented. Clockwork, he… He stopped this from happening, and everyone was okay. Everyone _is _okay! My parents are okay; Jazz, Sam, and Tucker, they're all fine. I… I should be in class, taking a test right now, and you! You should be…"

His voice trailed off then, and he lifted his gaze until he was looking directly at Plasmius.

_You should be floating through space somewhere, probably dead._

He couldn't bring himself to say it. Instead he broke eye contact again; he did not care for the pitiful look he was getting from his once archenemy. Plasmius clearly believed that he, Danny, belonged in a mental institution. And that was probably a valid belief at the moment. Danny sure _felt_ like he was going insane.

"Just… just leave me alone, Plasmius."

"Daniel, I—"

"I mean it," Danny suddenly interrupted. He raised his glowing palm in front of him, and the pulsing green light was a clear enough threat for both of them. Even with an extra five years of fighting experience under his belt there was no way that Danny could beat Plasmius in a fight, but he was clearly not going down without one. And Plasmius did not want a fight, unless Danny's instincts failed him.

His instincts were correct. Plasmius hesitantly stepped back, looking at odds with himself as he stared at Danny.

Finally, the older hybrid sighed, seeming to concede defeat in their argument. He raised his tired gaze upward for a few long seconds, almost seeming to search the clear autumn sky for something, and then he dropped his eyes back down to meet Danny's. Dark blue eyes met bright green ones, and for the life of him Danny could not figure out what Plasmius was thinking.

"Alright, alright, so be it," the man relented. "Just…" he paused and let out another tired sigh, and what he said next sounded more like a request than an order. "Just try not to do anything rash, Daniel."

Danny eyed his archenemy up and down, and Vlad never took his eyes off of Danny. "Don't do anything rash?" Danny repeated aloud, a confused expression crossing his face. What was that supposed to mean? Wait, did Vlad think..? Danny sighed when the meaning of Vlad's request finally occurred to him, and he released the tension in his stance and lowered his arm, breaking eye contact. "Don't worry about me, Plasmius. I'm a lot of things right now"—_confused, scared, suffering from a pretty massive headache_—"but trust me. I'm not suicidal."

_Not yet, anyway,_ the pessimistic side of his mind spoke up, and he told his archenemy, "Just go home."

Plasmius held his gaze for a long moment as though he was trying to read Danny's thoughts, but eventually he seemed to give up on that. Without another word he transformed, whirled his cape around himself, and disappeared.

Danny stared at the spot where Plasmius had been standing, subconsciously running a hand through his hair. He let the hand drop to his side and looked up, squinting through the harsh sunlight. He wanted to go flying, just to clear his thoughts, but if the Disasteroid incident had not yet happened, that meant Valerie was probably still after his head. Flying around Amity Park would be anything but relaxing.

His gaze fell back down to the crater he had caused, and he winced.

"Might as well clean up," he murmured to himself.

He raised his palms toward the wreckage and narrowed his eyes in concentration, wondering all the while if this would actually work. After a long moment a _crack_ resounded from the concrete, and Danny smiled. Slabs of asphalt that had been bent and broken slowly lifted and returned to their original place; the faults between them remained, but the structure of the road was essentially restored. There was a muffled hiss as the dirt that had been displaced slowly filled the crater beneath the road, and only when he was sure the road was safe for passing cars did Danny release his hold.

"Huh. Nice to know that still works," he thought aloud, looking down and studying his open palm. Apparently knowing the technique for telekinesis was enough to perform it; he was not nearly as drained now as he had been after teleporting. "Better still be careful, though."

In other words, there would be no picking up and moving buildings. _Take it easy, Fenton._

He glanced around to be sure the area was empty, and transformed back into his human half, deciding to head back toward his house on foot and save his energy. He was exhausted from the day so far, but he was not about to just go home and crash into his bed. He was going to go to Clockwork's lair again, only because he had no other leads. In no way did he expect to find Clockwork there if he had not been there the first time, but really… what else could he do?

As he stuffed his hands back into his pockets and began to walk around the corner, he never noticed the tiny, Plasmius-shaped beetle delicately land on the back of his shirt.

**End Chapter 2**


	3. Chapter 3

To a few specific reviewers…

VampireFrootloopsRule: MWAHAHAHAHA! I will never tell you what I've done with Clockwork! … Actually, I will :D Just not yet.

Phantom Trainer: That sounds pretty interesting and I'll give it a look :] As for the story being confusing, fear not, darling. It's meant to be confusing for now, and everything will be explained in due time.

DragonsFlame117: I'm looking forward to w_riting_ Vlad's reaction to Danny's new powers. I mean, think about it. Vlad hasn't even seen Danny's ghostly wail yet! Let alone his ice powers, or any of the other powers I decide he got after Phantom Planet.

Hopeistheway: HA! You thought that was a cliffhanger. Just wait until the end of THIS chapter! ;D

As for the rest of you, thank you so so so so much for all your praise and compliments! It just makes me feel so great and keeps me motivated to continue the story. You guys are awesome.

So yeah, here's the next installment of Stars on the Horizon, as promised. Sorry for the longer-than-expected wait. I had already finished the second chapter when I posted the first one, and that's why Chapter 2 came out so soon. Usually you can expect about two weeks between each chapter, depending on whether my life decides to make things easy on me or not.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 3**

Vlad Plasmius reappeared in the private lab of his Wisconsin home, pink smoke dissipating the moment his boots touched the ground. He transformed back into his human form, and once the black rings vanished, he cautiously removed his arm from around his ribs. Very slowly he stretched his arms over his head. His spine let out a loud _pop_ and his ribs protested the movement with a stab of pain. He winced.

Daniel was getting better at this.

_And I'm getting too old for this,_ he added bitterly as he sat down heavily on his computer chair. Sure, he was only in his forties, and healthier than most twenty-year-olds thanks to his ghost powers… but these past few days had really taken a toll on him, as much as he was loath to admit it.

He ran both hands down his face slowly, keeping his half-lidded eyes on the mainframe before him. Eventually he left one hand to support his chin while the other went to work with the computer mouse. He clicked on a file labeled _Surveillance2_ and lazily typed the password with one hand. The file opened with a small ringing sound, and he double-clicked the icon that would open the controls for one of his small, mobile surveillance cameras.

"The ghost boy is in human form," the computer spoke out in a technically perfect impression of Maddie's voice. Vlad cringed. This was the first time he had been in his labs since the explosion had killed Maddie, and hearing her synthetic voice from his computer was a blow he did not need right now. The program continued, "Shall I begin analysis of human DNA, sweetheart?"

There was a moment in which he simply sat there, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut, but finally he gulped down the knot in his throat and responded firmly, "No. Terminate all files relating to that experiment, immediately." It looked like a number of his projects would be put on hold now. The cloning, though… That was going on hold permanently. Of that he was sure.

"Very well, pumpkin!" the computer piped cheerfully over the sound of the computer whirring quietly as it went to work terminating nearly half of the information in its databases, and Vlad swore he felt his stomach turn over. The knot in his throat returned, seeming determined to keep jabbing a pin through his Adam's apple with each breath he took. And to think, he had planned on adding a full-body holographic to the system. Maddie would have been walking around his lab and talking… The idea might have been appealing if not for the fact that the _real_ Maddie was lying six feet underneath a grave marker at this very moment. He took in a deep breath and forced himself back into reality, knowing that he would have to remind himself to change the computer systems back to an automated voice later if he wanted to preserve his sanity.

He shook his head as though to rid the thought from his mind and returned to the task at hand, maneuvering a small beetle-shaped camera to latch onto the back of Daniel's shirt.

What he had told the boy was not a lie. He really could not leave him to face his fate alone, not in such an unstable mental condition. Daniel had been sounding absolutely insane back there. How could he possibly think his family and friends were still alive? For goodness sake, Vlad himself had been there when they identified the bodies!

He had no idea what had caused Daniel's overnight change in mood—after all, the boy had been so quiet and distant these last few days—nor did he know from where the child's sudden idea had come that his family was alive. Of course, however, he could barely blame the little badger. The boy was distraught. Losing one's entire family and only friends so suddenly was surely enough to drive anyone to the brink of insanity, let alone a fourteen-year-old boy.

And his maddening words earlier about his family being alive… well, that was just more proof of the child's instability, wasn't it?

The window on his computer screen finally finished loading, and a pixelated image appeared of Daniel walking down the street. The video feed slowly became clearer, the pixels multiplying until the computer screen showed Vlad a high definition, live video of exactly where Daniel was and what he was doing. He watched as the teenager entered his home and, instead of heading up to his or his sister's bedroom, walked right through the kitchen to the set of stairs that Vlad knew led to the underground lab. Vlad's brow furrowed. Why on Earth would the boy want to go down there? Daniel walked down the stairs and right up to the control panel against the far wall, and the boy pressed his thumb against the button that would open the portal into the Ghost Zone.

He was going into the Ghost Zone, but why…?

Vlad lifted his chin out of his hand when a dreadful thought occurred to him, his wide eyes fixated on the screen.

Could Daniel believe that his family had become ghosts?

_No_, he dismissed with a shake of his head. No, it was impossible! He had told the boy specifically, no more than two days ago, that he should never even hope for such a thing. If his family had been brought back as ghosts they would scarcely recognize him. Ghosts were barely connected to their past lives; they were only spectral energy that manifested from post-human consciousness. They would be malevolent beings bent on satisfying their own ghostly obsessions and nothing more.

… Well he had not gone into that much detail of course (in fact, Daniel probably had no idea what post-human consciousness even was), but surely the boy had understood the point!

Vlad watched nervously as Daniel transformed and flew through the ghost portal.

Oh, butter biscuits, he did not want to watch. Heaven forbid that any of the boy's loved ones actually _had_ become a ghost. The boy was already unstable enough. Something like that, though… Vlad shuddered. Something like that would destroy him.

"Sugar cakes," he muttered under his breath. He hated feeling like this. All this unwelcomed worry was putting Vlad on edge. He was not emotionally equipped to actually c_are_ about what happened to anyone other than himself. _And I don't care,_ he insisted angrily. The only reason he had to worry about Daniel's wellbeing was because the boy was legally his responsibility. If he had just stepped back and allowed Daniel to be tossed into some orphanage when he had heard of the explosion, then none of this would be an issue.

His mind's eye suddenly drew up an image of Daniel, alone in some orphanage, probably only lasting a few days before his ghost powers combined with his grief landed him in a mental hospital. Something in his chest tightened painfully, and he forced himself to stop thinking about it.

With a slightly shaking hand he turned off the screen, placed his palms on the desk, and pushed himself up until he was standing straight.

"Stay out of trouble, Daniel," he whispered, "for my sake, at least."

He stepped back and cautiously twisted from side to side, noting that his ribs were nearly healed thanks to his ghost powers, and turned away from the computer. Daniel would be alright for a few minutes on his own, Vlad was sure. He could afford to leave the computer for just long enough to get himself some coffee.

At least he told himself that. Truth be told he was afraid to see what might happen to the boy, and really, he would be far better equipped to deal with the aftermath, whatever it might be.

As he reached the top of the stairs and entered his private study, he felt the unpleasant flare of heat that was his ghost sense creeping up his spine and gripping his lungs, signaling the presence of a ghost nearby. By the strength of it, the ghost was in the very same room as him. He glanced around, wondering if it was the Dairy King meandering about or perhaps Skulker, but he saw no one. He shook his head and continued on; ghosts were a common occurrence in his castle, after all. Why should he worry about one little ghost that was too shy to show itself in front of him?

His thoughts drifted back to Daniel, as they would not stop doing the last few days. When he made it to the first floor, he was mentally debating on when he should approach the boy again, because there was no doubt in his mind that he _would_ approach Daniel again. He stepped through the doorway into the kitchen, just about having decided on giving the boy his space for two days more at the most, even though he would probably wind up calling the boy's cell phone before then.

At the exact moment that that thought passed through his mind, he both felt and heard hot breath in his ear. He whirled around, his heart thumping loudly in his chest, Daniel all but forgotten and his glowing pink hand aimed at the… empty hallway behind him.

He blinked, chest visibly moving with his deep breaths as he fought to silence the blood pumping through his head. He could have _sworn_ there had been someone there. It could have been a ghost, but… Had his ghost sense alerted him to anything in the kitchen? Had he really zoned out so completely that he had not even noticed his ghost sense? His narrowed eyes swept over the hallway, but there was nothing to be seen aside from the usual decorations lining the walls. There was no sound coming from the hall, either.

His suspicious gaze was still fixed on the hallway, but after about two minutes of nothing presenting itself, he decided that just standing there was not doing anything for him. He turned around to head back into the kitchen, ignoring the pressing feeling that there was someone there.

As he sifted through the cabinets looking for everything to prepare his coffee, he chuckled to himself and thought, _Daniel's not the only one going crazy, evidently._

* * *

_GONG!_

This time Danny didn't jump; after being in Clockwork's lair for long enough, he was already used to the annoyingly incorrect (and even more annoyingly, the _regular_) time intervals with which the clocks felt the need to chime out a new hour.

Again he pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the time.

"Six fifty-two," he muttered out loud before tucking the phone away and glancing around. As he had expected, the clock had only let out its ground-shaking gong once. Idly he wondered whether he would still be exploring Clockwork's lair an hour from now, when Danny assumed the clock would gong twelve times and start the cycle all over again. At the rate this was going, he had a feeling he would die of boredom before he stayed here for that long.

Danny stretched his arms over his head and yawned loudly, walking from room to room around Clockwork's lair in his human form. He passed through yet another wall and listened as the sound of all those ticking clocks faded a bit more, like the sound of chirping crickets outside after the windows have been closed. _There sure are a lot of rooms in this place,_ he mused, tucking his hands into his pockets and glancing around at the brick walls that encompassed the mostly empty room before he continued on his way, stepping through the opposite wall. About half an hour ago he had decided to search around the building and explore a bit, given that he really had no better ideas.

Besides, before today Danny had only ever been through the entrance hallway of the castle and in that central room with all its ticking, chiming clocks. Who knew what else might be found in this labyrinth of a lair?

And plus, although the thought had occurred to him that Clockwork might actually be permanently missing from this timeline somehow, Danny was still fairly certain that the master of time was simply avoiding his castle whenever Danny showed up. Clockwork always had been very dramatic that way. In any case, Danny was about 90% sure that the spirit could always tell where—and when—Danny happened to be, so Clockwork probably knew exactly what was happening here.

And hey, if Danny was being thrown into this messed up timeline with no explanation and no help at all, then the_ least_ he could do in return was annoy the ever-loving crap out of Clockwork by exploring his lair for a bit. The thought brought a smile to his face as he turned left and passed through another wall.

Now he was moving closer to that central room, judging by the way the sound of ticking clocks was growing in a steady crescendo with each step he took.

He passed through a room that was absolutely gigantic, about the width of Danny's entire house, and it was filled with—who would have guessed it—more clocks. Danny could barely keep from rolling his eyes. The room looked like an attic reserved especially for old, worn out or broken clocks. All over there were grandfather clocks and pocket watches and shelf clocks and wall clocks, and Danny was even pretty sure he could see a cuckoo clock hanging on the opposite end of the room.

Danny let out an impressed whistle as his eyes roamed over the massive piles of junk. He literally could not see any of the walls around him past all the clocks; he had had to walk through a grandfather clock just to enter the room.

He continued on his way, passing through a wall of shelves that carried an arrangement of watches, and he entered another room… exactly the same as the last.

"Really?" he asked incredulously, one eyebrow raised as he looked around at the crazy amount of broken clocks all around him.

And to think, he thought his dad was a packrat.

"Jeez, Clockwork," he mused aloud with a smirk on his face, "I used to think you weren't crazy and obsessive like all those other ghosts. Way to prove me wrong on that one."

He shook his head, chuckling to himself as he turned away from the piles and made his way out of the room, walking right through a stack of shelf clocks on his way out. He was about ready to leave now, already having had his fill of pointlessly exploring Clockwork's lair, but he figured he should pass through the central room again for old time's sake. Maybe he could check out all those screens again and see if they were displaying anything in the time stream.

_Probably not,_ he reasoned. _They were all off last time I saw them._

The cacophony of ticks and chimes was growing much louder now, taking a leap in volume each time he passed through a wall.

He passed through one more wall, and suddenly the ticking clocks were just as loud as they had been when he had first arrived in that central room. He glanced to the far end of the room, where there was an open doorway through which he could just make out the circle of screens showing the time stream. They were still blank.

A disappointed sigh escaped his lips, and he shoved his hands into his pockets as he made his way toward the door, walking around the single table that was the only decoration in the room.

_Wait,_ he thought, pausing as he passed the table.

There was something familiar about this.

He cocked his head to the side, studying the table and trying to determine why it looked so familiar. Had he seen this table before? The room was nothing spectacular, just dark green walls and a floor and a ceiling, all of which had that ethereal glow that was normal for any building in the Ghost Zone. The table was equally unremarkable. So why did it bother him so much? There was just something tugging at his gut, forcing him to stop here and figure out what was so special about this room.

He crossed his arms over his chest for a moment, looking over the table's smooth, violet surface, wondering if looking at it for long enough would jar his memory.

When it didn't, he uncrossed his arms and placed on hand on the table to steady himself, crouching down and ducking his head down to inspect the underside. _Still nothing,_ he thought to himself, but the thought never crossed his mind that there might be nothing to find, that maybe it was just a coincidence that this room looked so familiar.

Because in Danny Fenton's life, there were never any coincidences.

He straightened up and frowned at the table, and then glanced toward the door. Slowly he began to step toward the door, walking backward and keeping his eyes on the table. When his feet carried him past the doorway, he continued back several steps so that he was viewing the room from where he would have been most likely to see it before: the center of all those screens that usually showed the time stream.

When he was far enough away from the room, Danny halted in his steps, his jaw dropping and the realization hitting him like a ton of bricks.

"Oh, no," he breathed. He ran his hands through his hair and gripped two handfuls of it for a second, staring with wide eyes at that room that had been so familiar, the room in which a Fenton thermos had once sat.

No, not a Fenton thermos. _The_ Fenton thermos, the one that had been holding the older, evil version of himself, had been sitting on that table every time Danny had come to visit Clockwork's lair.

"No, no, no," he muttered. "This is so bad!"

_How could I have been so stupid?_ Danny paced back and forth in Clockwork's lair. _Stupid, stupid, stupid! _He had found a broken Fenton thermos at the site of the Nasty Burger explosion, and he had just forgotten about it! How could he not realize that it had been the very same thermos that he had used all those years ago? Why else would it be there, right where the fight had occurred, if it wasn't the thermos he had used to capture his jerky older self? Of course the thermos would be there! In this timeline, Clockwork never saved his family, and so he never took the thermos to his lair…

He stopped in his pacing when his next thought gripped him and sent a cold flush through his spine.

There had been a crack in the Fenton thermos when he had found it at the Nasty Burger. It had looked like… _like someone ripped it open from the inside,_ he realized, his heart sinking in dread.

"How is that even possible?" he wondered aloud. He had been in the Fenton Thermos before, and he had spent the entire time he was in there trying to bust it open. It had been a full two hours when Jazz finally managed to open the thermos and let him out, but he had not even made a dent.

His older, evil self was out there somewhere… and he was powerful enough to break out of a Fenton thermos. He was probably looking for Danny at this very moment, or else he was looking for some defenseless town to destroy. _And did I mention he's powerful enough to break out of a Fenton thermos? Oh, God, I am so screwed!_

He stopped his pacing, forcing himself to calm down with a few long, deep breaths. _Cam down, Fenton,_ he ordered himself. So the thermos had broken. So the most powerful foe he had ever faced was running free and probably just waiting to wreak some havoc. So he was still stuck in the past, and probably not even half as strong as he would be in the present. This was not the end of the world.

Actually, now that he thought about it, he had seen Amity Park after his older, evil self had been set loose on it. That had sure _looked_ like the end of the world.

He groaned and drove the heel of his palm into his forehead, cursing his brain. Great. Now he was pacing again.

"Alright, calm down," he ordered himself aloud. Anywhere else he might have sounded crazy, but there was no one around to hear him—except perhaps Clockwork, but he found he couldn't care less about whether Clockwork thought he had lost all his marbles or not. Talking out loud helped him think. "I've been in the past for"—he checked his phone again for the time—"seven or eight hours. I, er, older me has been free for at least the entire time I've been here, maybe longer, and I have no idea where he is."

His pacing slowed, and he crossed his arms over his chest and drummed his fingers against his bicep, biting his lip as he gazed up at the churning gears above him. "So why hasn't he shown himself?" he wondered. "Wouldn't he want to gloat? I mean, jeez, the guy broke out of a Fenton thermos. I know _I'd _want to gloat about something like that."

Suddenly his phone buzzed in his pocket, startling him and making him jump.

He groaned in frustration when the buzzing gave way to a cheery jingle, grumpily shoving his hand into his pocket and yanking the phone out. He was really getting tired of things startling him today.

Without opening the phone just yet, he looked down at the caller ID on the front, raising an eyebrow when he realized it was a number that was not in his contact list. _Granted, just about anyone on my contact list that would call me is dead in this timeline,_ he conceded with a shrug. He wracked his brain and tried to remember whose number it might be, but for the life of him he could not even remember which state had a 608 area code.

He sighed and decided, _Might as well see who it is._ That jingle was getting annoying anyway. What in the world had he been thinking five years ago when he made this his ringtone?

He flipped the phone open and held it to his ear.

"Hello?"

The voice that came through the line to answer him immediately put a scowl on his face, and it was all he could do not to groan out loud.

"Daniel, I—"

"Plasmius, how many ecto-blasts is it gonna take to get you to leave me alone?" he interjected, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance.

There was a pause in which Danny was pretty sure he could hear the faintly warbling sounds of a television in the background. Then he heard Vlad sigh quietly and reckon, "It will take a lot more than that, I'm afraid."

Danny actually groaned this time. He could practically hear the smug grin on his archenemy's face.

"Why are you calling me?" he asked, but his tone made it sound more like a demand than anything else.

"To make sure that you've listened to me and haven't done anything rash, little badger," Vlad responded immediately.

_Little badger._ It had been a heck of a long time since he had heard that, and it grated on his nerves like nothing else ever had. He growled back, "Listen, cheese head, I already told you I'm fine. And I would be heck of a lot _better_ if you would stop sticking your big, fat nose into my business!"

With that, he snapped the phone shut with a lot more force than was necessary and shoved it back into his pocket. It buzzed again no more than two seconds later, but Danny stubbornly ignored it and began walking toward the entrance hallway of Clockwork's lair.

That was one thing about Vlad Plasmius that Danny remembered vividly. The fruit loop just could _never_ leave Danny alone, and it was frustrating beyond belief. Plasmius had never seemed to be able to get it through his thick skull that Danny had more important things to worry about than chatting (or more often, fighting) with his archenemy, and right now he _definitely_ had more important things to worry about. One very, very important thing.

There was a ghost somewhere out there, more powerful than Danny and Vlad combined, and with twice the urge to kill and destroy than Vlad Plasmius had ever had.

_And he's my responsibility,_ Danny added to himself. _If he hurts anyone, it'll be my fault._

Alternate timeline or not, that much was true. He couldn't let his evil, older version get his hands on any innocent people to kill or any city to destroy. His eyes blazed green with determination, and his steady walk broke into a jog toward the main entrance. Just before he reached the massive double doors, he leapt into the air and dove through them. In a flash of white he transformed in midair just after his shoes cleared the doors and took off toward the Fenton portal.

If there was a surefire way to track down any ghost, he would find it in his parents' lab.

At least Danny certainly hoped so.

* * *

Vlad pulled the phone away from his ear and glared at the little device, listening to the faint sound of Daniel's answering machine on the other line. He sighed loudly and slammed the phone down onto its receiver, silently fuming over Daniel's insolence as he turned away from the phone.

He really shouldn't have called, but when Vlad had checked the status of his tracking device minutes earlier, he had only been greeted by a blank screen. The tracking device had suddenly stopped tracking Daniel's movements and had made it impossible to tell whether the boy was alive, let alone where on Earth he might have been. Why the tracking device had stopped working was lost on Vlad, but regardless, there was no way he was leaving Daniel unchecked without knowing where he was. Calling the boy had been frustrating, but at least he now knew that Daniel was alive, if nothing else.

His ghost sense flared up again, and he let out a puff of hot air when the feeling gripped unpleasantly at his chest. Aside from glancing about the room to check for anyone important such as Skulker or the Fright Knight, he ignored it. His ghost sense had been acting up all day for some reason.

Already forgetting about it, he sat down on the couch before the biggest television in his castle (well, second biggest, the biggest being the one in his Packers theater). Vlad had personally made sure that the Amity Park local news channel had been added to his cable package months ago, and that channel was playing now. He was watching Lance Thunder, the area's weather (and because this was Amity Park, ghost-weather) reporter, inform the town's citizens of a spotting of Inviso-Bill fighting the alleged "Wisconsin Ghost" just hours before. Lance was standing on the side of the road, just next to the place where Vlad had fought his young rival, pointing behind him to the area on the road where Vlad knew there had been a Plasmius-sized crater not too long ago.

How they had managed to repair the road so quickly, Vlad had no idea, but he supposed it was unimportant.

Apparently this fight was big news to them, considering Daniel had not made an appearance in his ghost form since the deaths of his friends and family, and three days without seeing the ghost boy was an extremely rare occurrence in Amity Park.

_Good,_ he thought to himself. He had been worried that the infamous ghost boy's disappearance would trigger suspicions, especially when it coincided so perfectly with the day Daniel moved to Wisconsin. This sighting, though, should throw off any connection between Daniel's alter-egos. And, of course, a sighting of the Wisconsin Ghost so far away from where Vlad Masters was supposed to be was also convenient.

Lance was now moving on to the actual weather, explaining with a hint of annoyance in his otherwise professional tone that temperatures had dropped to abnormally low levels around Amity Park in the past twenty-four hours.

"Apparently winter's coming early this year," the reporter informed viewers. "Today's temperatures reached a record low for this area, only rivaled by a date over twenty years ago. Actually, cold pockets have been showing up all over the Midwest, as shown on this map…"

"How interesting," Vlad muttered sarcastically.

The sun was beginning to recede into the horizon just outside one of the windows. He checked his watch and verified quietly, "Seven forty-eight," before turning his attention back to the television. He would give himself until nine to sit here and lose himself in some mindless TV programs.

He flipped the channels, silently wishing it was Sunday. He needed something to keep his mind off of the pressing situation with Daniel, but unless the Packers were playing, there was rarely anything on daytime television that ever caught his attention. Today was no exception. He flicked past a reality contest show, a cartoon about some little boy with fairy godparents, and some fictional show about two men that hunted ghosts and attacked them with salt. Really? Who in their right mind would think that s_alt_ of all things would hurt a ghost? He snorted at the thought.

After passing a few more channels that did not interest him in the slightest, he sighed and pressed the power button on the remote, electing to spend the rest of his night in the lab working out whatever bug had caused his tracking device to stop working. That at least should keep him occupied for an hour or two.

The screen winked out, an infomercial for a set of knifes giving way to a screen filled with black. For a second he could see the reflection of the room around him; the priceless coffee table that had been imported directly from Austria a few years ago sitting in front of him, his own reflection sitting on the couch with one leg folded over the other.

… And a tall, shadowy figure standing just behind him, its glowing red eyes glaring at him as it prepared to strike—

"_FUDGE BUCKETS!"_

He careened off the couch and attempted to jump over the coffee table, but in his haste he tripped over it and, arms flailing wildly, fell onto the carpet with his legs still sprawled over the table. He instantly flipped around onto his back and shot a preemptive ecto-blast toward where the figure had been, only succeeding in scorching a large section of the ceiling.

There was no one there, at least not anymore.

Vlad laid there for a moment, leaning up on one elbow and staring around the room, his palm raised and tensed and ready to attack again. The only sound was that of his heavy breathing until he spoke up and shouted, "Skulker, I swear if that's you, I will rip your puny little body out of that suit and feed you to your pets!"

Really he knew it wasn't Skulker. His ghost sense was flaring so powerfully that it was becoming difficult to breathe. There was no way this was any ghost he normally dealt with, let alone some shy, unknown ghost passing through the room. He hadn't felt anything this strong since Pariah Dark.

He slowly began to stand up, one arm still aimed at random points in the room as he gazed warily around.

"Show yourself!" he barked as black rings emerged from his waist and transformed him into his ghost form. "Come out now and I _might_ decide to let you continue your pathetic little existence!"

Aside from his voice echoing slightly against the high ceiling, nothing answered him. He clenched his fist tightly and glared around the room. His ghost sense flared again and sent a shiver of apprehension down his spine, but he hid it well with some extra bravado pumped into his voice.

"Hiding from me is useless!" he warned. "I will take down this entire building and buy a new one if I must! And just to give you a fair warning, I have had one hell of a week, and I would _not_ object one bit to taking out my frustrations on some ghost that is too meddlesome to stay out of my castle!"

There were a few seconds of silence after his rant ended, and for those few seconds Vlad was almost certain that he would never get an answer.

But then his heart sank when an invisible vice suddenly gripped at his throat. The impossibly strong grip made it unbearable to breathe and shoved him backward until he was pressed against the wall, gasping for breath and trying desperately to get his fingers around the offending object crushing his windpipe.

Black spots prodded at Vlad's vision. A voice spoke out then, so close that it must have been coming from only inches in front of his face.

"Hello, Plasmius."

**End Chapter 3**

* * *

Regardless of my little jab at the TV show _Supernatural_, I absolutely love that show.

Until next time!


	4. Chapter 4

When I say "thank you" to all you reviewers, I just say "thank you," but what I really want to do is reach through the computer screen and hug each and every one of you while simultaneously baking you each a batch of your favorite kind of cookie and sending candy-grams out to everyone who added this story to their favorites and/or story alerts.

… Is that weird?

ANYWAY.

To PrincessBetty01, thank you! I was actually worried that I was rushing the story a bit, because my instinct is to describe every single thing in _excruciating detail_, but then you guys would be reading like, novel sized chapters and that would just be exhausting. So thank you :)

To pearl84, I KNOW, RIGHT? It seems like anytime Dark Dan shows up in a story, the author just… stops (and even counting the unfinished stories, there is just not nearly enough of him on this site). But I will finish this story! Mark my words, I will!

To VampireFrootloopsRule, you're right, it wouldn't be smart for Dan to outright kill Vlad, but that doesn't mean he can't have a little fun and make Vlad _think_ he's gonna kill him. ;)

As for the rest of you, thank you, thank you, and thank you again!

Alright! Sorry it took me so long, but now, for what you've all been waiting for! Well, what you've been waiting for since I revealed that Dark Dan is in this story, anyway. I have to say, it's a lot of fun writing him, especially when he's face to face with freaking _Vlad_. I think we can all agree that it's something that's been long coming and for SOME stupid reason never happened in the show.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 4**

"Come on," he muttered, cursing under his breath. "There has to be something here!"

Danny kneeled down on the basement floor, his hands digging into a box of old inventions with the word "LAB" scribbled across the side in his dad's sloped handwriting, the very same cardboard box that—five years into the future, at least—had held the Fenton Boo-merang amongst dozens of other specialized ghost weapons. His white gloves sifted through the box, pulling out weapon after weapon, and he only spared each one a passing glance before he deemed it useless and haphazardly tossed it over his shoulder. The clang of metal hitting metal echoed through the entire house over and over, especially when he tossed a rather hefty bazooka behind him and let it crash to the floor with a loud _FF-TANG._

A frustrated groan escaped him when he reached the bottom of the box without any success. He planted his hands on either side of the box and turned it over, shaking it a few times so that the few loose nuts and bolts fell out onto the floor as well, and he tilted his head underneath to look inside as though the Boo-merang might just emerge from the empty box out of nowhere.

No such luck.

He sighed in defeat and tossed the box over his shoulder as well, letting it tumble across the floor behind him as his glowing green eyes glanced around the lab in search of that little silver tracking device.

He wrinkled his nose in distaste when a thought occurred to him. Those stupid cops had probably taken the Boo-merang when they were searching the lab for evidence after the Nasty Burger explosion. Danny glared at the floor, trying to remember what he had seen them walk out with this morning, but it was no use. He had been so confused by their conversation that whatever the cops had been carrying in those little evidence bags had been the least of his worries.

Finally he stood up and walked to the other end of the lab, planting his hands on his hips as he scrutinized the main control panel which ran all of the machines in the lab. If he couldn't find the Boo-merang, he would have settled for anything. The Ecto-tracker built into the lab's mainframe would have worked just fine, as would the Fenton Finder, but sadly his parents hadn't invented either of those devices yet. They wouldn't think to make them until several years from now, and its main purpose would be to find their half-ghost son during the longer ghost fights that kept him out past curfew.

So inventions were out, then. He left one hand on his hip and scratched the back of his head with the other.

_If you were a psychopathic, evil, 24-year-old jerk and you just broke out of the Fenton thermos, where would you go? What would you do?_

He stood there for several long minutes trying to make himself think like his jerky older self, but Danny discovered rather quickly that it was pretty much impossible—although, of course, he supposed that that was probably a good thing.

_Inconvenient, though,_ he added as he slowly ran his hands through his hair. He let out a huff as his eyes roamed over the control panel. There had to be something here. There just had to be. If he couldn't find a device to track the ghost down, then… what could he do?

_Come on, Fenton, think,_ he urged himself. _You've dealt with him before, and you've dealt with tons of other ghosts _like_ him. Think._

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine all of his battles with the tons of other ghosts he had struggled to defeat over the years. His mind drew up images of Skulker, Technus, Ember…_ No, no, he's not like those other ghosts. If they busted out of the Fenton thermos and could do anything they wanted, they would just fly to some random spot on the globe to destroy some pointless city with their own specialized brands of crazy, _Danny reminded himself. _He wouldn't do that. He might be evil, but he's not brainless._

That much Danny knew to be true. There was a method to the madness, so to speak. That ghost also had some of Vlad's ghost half in it, and that meant that in addition to being evil, he was conniving, too. The ghost had to have some sort of plan.

_If anything, I would have thought he would have come after me,_ Danny mused. That had been his first thought when he had realized that the evil version of himself was roaming free; he had wondered why the ghost had not just immediately come after him. After all, wasn't that the entire point of their fight all those years ago? Danny had been fighting to stop that terrible future from happening, and his evil self had been fighting to ensure the exact opposite, right?_ I mean, I'm not exactly itching to dig some ghost gauntlets into my chest right now, so wouldn't he at least want to…_

It was like a brick just lodged itself in his stomach when the realization hit him. His jaw dropped, and his hands fell to his sides.

_Oh my God,_ he thought.

That was it! Of course!

Danny cursed himself for not realizing it sooner. The moment that Fenton thermos had cracked open, his older evil self probably _had _immediately gone after Danny to try and set his future in stone; he just wasn't looking in Amity Park. And just where, exactly, would the ghost think to find Danny after the Nasty Burger explosion?

A sigh escaped him, his eyes squeezing shut and his nose wrinkling in distaste as he breathed the answer to his own question out loud, almost in defeat.

"Wisconsin."

Danny's eyes opened and left the control panel, scanning the room until he had turned fully around and was staring right at the biggest invention in the room. He had to stop that ghost before he caused any real damage or hurt anyone, and although he knew he couldn't handle teleporting there, he had the next best thing.

The Specter Speeder floated before him, several upgrades behind the one Danny was used to, but still much faster than his fourteen-year-old body could handle flying and many times faster than any car (not that a car was a very good option to begin with; Danny imagined that the police would be a little suspicious seeing a kid his age cruising down the highway in the Fenton RV—or worse, his sister's pink Volkswagen).

The Specter Speeder could get him across two states in as little as an hour. He took in a dramatic breath and sighed again.

"Looks like I'll be paying Plasmius a visit after all," he muttered as he floated toward the Speeder to open its hood and check its engines, but even as he drummed his fingers impatiently against the cold metal of the underused Speeder and muttered to himself about how annoying this whole situation was, he couldn't help but acknowledge the little pinprick of anxiety quivering in his gut.

His evil doppelganger had been free at least since this morning; there was no telling what he might have done between then and now.

_I just hope I'm not too late,_ he thought, and he slammed the hood shut and hopped into the driver's seat.

* * *

"Hello, Plasmius."

That voice, he had never heard that voice before, but Vlad found himself caring very little about who owned it. His lungs were burning, and his heart was pounding more weakly with each passing second. He could hear the blood pumping through his temples, weak and frantic as his body worked to keep him alive without any oxygen. It felt like he had been standing here (_hanging_, actually, considering he was being held up against a wall with his boots barely grazing the carpet) for much longer than he would have expected.

Butter biscuits, did it really take this long to choke to death?

The telltale sound of his own transformation met his ears, and if the black spots in his eyes were not working to blot out his vision, Vlad was certain he would be able to see black rings appearing around his own waist. Again he reached for the vice that was tightening even further around his neck, but his muscles seemed unwilling to respond—or maybe they did respond, but his limbs were growing numb and he could barely see anything and oh, God, he really needed some air.

He was barely aware of the sensation when he finally managed to wrap his fingers around something tangible and round. No, not completely round, but… almost like a _tube_? Maybe it was an arm.

Somewhere in the hazy depths of his subconscious, his mind repeated that thought. _An arm…?_ _An arm!_

If asked later, Vlad would say that he had acted on pure instinct. There was something hurting him, depriving him of oxygen to nearly the point of death, and so he did the only thing he could think to do.

He pumped that sucker full of electricity.

Pink light filled his vision, flushing out the darkness that had been threatening to take him seconds earlier, and suddenly the grip on his throat slackened. He thought he might have heard someone cry out, but the only thing that really registered in his mind was that he could breathe again. Without the hand around his throat he fell, but his legs refused to support him and he collapsed onto his knees the moment his shoes touched the carpet. The last pink sparks died out from his hands as he massaged his sore neck, taking in gigantic gulps of air with his eyes squeezed shut.

"Not bad," the same voice from earlier spoke up again as though its owner had not just been pumped with enough electricity to kill a human being. Vlad's eyes opened in shock. He could see his attacker's white boots along with its shadow on the floor—apparently the ghost had relinquished its invisibility for the time being—and he could see that the ghost was standing just beside him. "But I expected you to be a _tad_ stronger, to be honest," the ghost continued. It chuckled lowly and added, "I was starting to think you would never fight back, old man."

_How on Earth are you still standing?_ Vlad tried to speak the question aloud, but all his throat could muster up was a painful, "Hah—" before his voice degenerated into a fit of coughing, and he doubled over with his forearms pressed into the floor.

"Now, now," the ghost mocked, and Vlad could hear it walking around him until it was standing right in front of him with its boots barely a few inches away from Vlad's head. "Don't hurt yourself, cheese-head. I need you conscious."

A dull ache was still throbbing in his lungs, and Vlad was certain that there would be some ugly bruising on his neck for the next week or so, but strength was slowly but surely returning to his weakened muscles. He stayed where he was, silent, taking in deep breath after deep breath with his forehead resting against his arm. Apparently the ghost was content with waiting until he was ready to stand or at least respond, and Vlad fully intended on using every second he had.

This ghost might have been strong, but it must have been missing quite a few brain cells. It had caught him by surprise and had gotten the upper hand… and now it was waiting for him to recuperate? Was this ghost really so idiotic?

He opened his eyes to glare at the floor, and the corners of his lips turned up in a malicious smirk. That was one mistake this ghost would regret dearly.

An invisible clone separated itself from him, seeping into the floor without a sound. Another clone followed and then another, and all three clones flew away in opposite directions and positioned themselves outside of the room, each waiting on the other side of a different wall. Vlad remained exactly where he was, not moving a muscle except to continue to take long, deep breaths.

Cheese logs, his lungs _still_ felt like they were on fire.

"Come on, Plasmius," the ghost spoke again. "I don't have all day."

Vlad growled indignantly at the ghost, but after a few more seconds he planted his hands on the carpet, waiting until his clones were at the ready before he pushed himself up and lifted his gaze to glare right at this ghost.

The anger melted from his face. His jaw dropped, and he scrambled first to his knees and then to his feet, his eyes never leaving the impossible ghost in front of him.

No. There was no way.

"How—? What—?" he stammered.

The ghost was grinning at him, baring a set of razor sharp fangs, but when it saw the way Vlad was staring at it, the ghost's face fell and it asked seriously, "What? Is there something in my teeth?"

The serious, almost confused look remained on the ghost's face for all of about three seconds before it bared those grotesque fangs again in an ear-to-ear grin and promptly burst out laughing, and an involuntary chill ran down Vlad's spine.

Vlad shook his head and forced himself to regain his composure. The fact that there was a twenty-something, blue-skinned and fanged version of Daniel's ghost form standing in front of him did _not_ mean that he was losing his mind.

… Right?

"Who are you?" he demanded, and his voice came out sounding every bit as angry and firm as he had hoped it would, even though his pulse was still speeding by at a mile a minute.

The ghost smirked and crossed its arms over its chest, regarding Vlad curiously. "What's the matter, old man? I know I've changed a bit, but… Don't you recognize me?" it asked, and the smirk on its face grew.

"I'm sorry, you must have misheard. I asked you a question," Vlad insisted, raising his hand to face the ghost, a ball of magenta light gathering in his palm as he spoke, "and I expect a straight answer."

"And I'm trying to tell you that you already _know_ who I am," the ghost responded and came closer, uncrossing its arms, and Vlad shifted some more ghostly energy into his palm until the light nearly had him squinting to see past it. The ghost completely ignored his wordless threat and gestured toward its chest, chiding, "What, is the big 'DP' plastered on my chest not a big enough clue for you? Come on, cheese-head, I thought you were smarter than that."

_Stop calling me that._ That was the foremost thought in Vlad's mind at the moment, but he shoved that away and argued simply, "That emblem belongs to a fourteen-year-old boy."

"Ah," the ghost agreed with a nod. "True, it does. So where _is_ the little… What do you call him again? Little badger?"

The unprecedented change in subject had Vlad clenching his teeth in irritation, but he said nothing.

"He's supposed to be here, isn't he?" the ghost continued. "I heard about the accident. So… _tragic,_ isn't it? Losing so many loved ones in such a short time…" the ghost trailed off, looking away and clicking its tongue in false distaste before it added, "Something like that would probably drive the kid _mad_."

The ghost locked eyes with Vlad again, and the grin on its face was positively feral now.

"So tell me, Plasmius. Where is he?" the ghost asked, taking another step closer to Vlad until it was standing just inches in front of the billionaire's glowing palm. Vlad had to bite the inside of his cheek to bring him back into reality and stop himself from taking a step back in response. This was just some second rate spook, perhaps one that could change its appearance at will, and Vlad was the most powerful ghost in the Ghost Zone short of Pariah Dark himself.

This ghost was nothing to be afraid of… so why couldn't he get himself to speak?

The amused grin fell from the ghost's face so quickly that the change was almost dizzying, and it glared hatefully at Vlad and mocked, "Cat got your tongue, Plasmius? I asked you a question, and I expect a straight answer."

The ghost then deftly reached up and grabbed Vlad's arm, the one that was aimed and ready to fire, wrapping a set of cold gloved fingers around his wrist so tightly that it hurt. And for the second time in the past twenty minutes, Vlad acted on instinct. He let loose all of the ghostly energy that had been coalescing in his palm and fired an ecto-blast right at the ghost's chest.

Instantly the grip on his arm disappeared, and the ghost flew back several feet before it collided with the opposite wall. Vlad called forth his clones, and all three of them flew into the room through the walls. Two of the clones each grabbed a hold of one of the ghost's arms, and the third clone passed through the wall just behind the ghost and wrapped an arm around its neck from behind.

A miniscule grin crept onto Vlad's face as the clones forced the ghost down to its knees, and he stepped forward until he was standing less than a foot in front of the ghost.

Now _this_ was a much preferable position.

"So," he asked as he crouched down to the ghost's eye level, "are you ready to tell me who you really are? Or better yet, how about telling me why you think you have the right to barge into my house uninvited? There are consequences for that, you know. Most ghosts understand that by now."

The ghost tugged his arm against one of the clones, but to no avail, even though it took a fair amount of Vlad's concentration to keep it held own. The ghost sent a glare at Plasmius and ordered, "Let me go."

Vlad raised an unimpressed eyebrow, his face as impassive as ever when he answered simply, "No."

The ghost struggled a little harder against the clones, and Vlad's clones were working their hardest to keep it still. Its pale blue face was slowly settling into an expression that Vlad knew all too well, even if it was being half-heartedly masked with anger.

This ghost was finally starting to be frightened.

Vlad reveled in the feeling, and he reached forward and grabbed the ghost around its throat. He opened his mouth to repeat his question, but before he could get a word out the ghost began to ripple and warp like a mirage right in front of him. Seconds later he was staring at Daniel, fourteen-year-old Daniel, being held down by him and his clones with a look of utter terror on his face.

"But… but what are you gonna do to me?" the ghost that was not Daniel asked, his voice shaky and terrified, and Vlad clenched his teeth as he scowled at the ghost.

The damn thing was not afraid of him in the slightest; what was worse, it was toying with him.

"Now, you listen here—"

All the fear on Daniel's—no, the ghost's—face gave way to another ear-to-ear grin then, and for the second time it broke out into barely controllable laughter as it warped back into the image of an adult with blue skin and piercing crimson eyes. "I'm sorry," it apologized, its voice distorted with laughter, "I'm sorry. It's just—you're so _confident!_ Usually everyone I kill is expecting it; it's always, 'No! Please don't kill me, Phantom!' or 'I'll do anything you want!'"

The ghost shrugged, looking away as it mused aloud, "Well, either that or they just start to panic. Even the version of you from my time is a pathetic coward now, but not past you! And I've gotta say, it's a welcome change! Sure, seeing the fear in my enemies' eyes is always nice, but it gets old; it really does, seeing that same look on their faces every time…"

It clicked its tongue and shook its head, but then it leaned forward as far as the clones would allow it to move and whispered to Vlad, "Do you know what I really miss seeing, Plasmius? Do you know what I haven't seen in almost a decade?"

Vlad's brow creased as he regarded the ghost skeptically. Everything it was saying made absolutely no sense, not in any way he could imagine.

The ghost sucked in a breath of air, and Vlad could only manage to get the words, "What are you—?" before the ghost opened its mouth and screamed.

Vlad's eyes widened as the gut-wrenching scream pounded in his ears, shaking the very foundation beneath the floor and sending vibrations through the walls. He released his hold on the ghost's throat and threw his hands up over his ears in an attempt to block out the deafening sound, barely aware of the usually painful sensation when all three of his clones evaporated into nothing. His feet lifted from the floor against his will, and gravity disappeared without him willing it away. The scream was throwing him backward, so no, it was not just a scream but a barrage of ghostly energy, like an absurdly powerful ectoplasmic energy blast.

His back slammed roughly into a wall, and for a few seconds the waves of ghostly energy pushed him against it until the wall crumbled under the pressure and he flew backward. Drywall and wood came down all around him as he fell back-first onto the floor in an adjacent room, but the scream did not even begin to let up until the surrounding walls began to crack and bend.

The ghost was standing now, and it was walking toward Vlad with its mouth still open as the scream echoed through the entire castle, white boots stepping over the pile of debris that had once been a wall.

The ceiling finally gave in to the pressure and collapsed, and almost immediately a glowing green shield formed a bubble that stopped the rubble from crushing either of them. Giant hunks of what had once been part of Vlad's castle fell down and collided with the shield, encasing them both in a dome that blocked out all light except for the glow of the ghost's energy.

Vlad groaned. If he had been strong enough to transform back into his ghost form before, that chance was long gone now. Aside from the crippling soreness in just about every one of his muscles, he was fairly certain that his ribs were broken. Again.

The scream finally began to die down, the warbling sounds slowly drifting into nothing, but Vlad's head continued to ache regardless.

"Surprise," the ghost finally spoke. "_That's_ what I miss seeing, Plasmius. Surprise."

Vlad tried to move so that he could stand, but his back protested—painfully. He winced, breathing heavily through clenched teeth as he forced himself to move. He had just managed to prop himself up on his elbows when the ghost crouched down in front of him, its forearms resting on its knees.

"I never get to see that wide-eyed look of shock on anyone's face anymore, and let me tell you, it's just priceless. So, thanks, Plasmius. This has been fun," the ghost told him. It had a look of contentment on its face, but that look was slowly giving way to remorse as he admitted, "But sadly, I have more important things to worry about than you."

Vlad scowled at the ghost, wishing he could just transform already and beat the arrogant thing to a pulp. Instead he addressed what the ghost had told him and spat, "Then why are you here?"

"Because you have something I want," the ghost immediately responded with an even glare. "Information. Where's the kid?"

Vlad blinked. That had been the last thing he had expected to hear, and the question threw him off for a moment. "What—? Why—?"

"The _kid,_ little fourteen-year-old Danny Fenton," the ghost elaborated, its voice rising in frustration. "He is _supposed_ to be here. So why isn't he?"

"I don't know what you're—"

The ghost sighed in frustration, rolling his eyes before it suddenly shot an ecto-blast directly into Vlad's chest. The blast knocked the wind out of Vlad's lungs and sent him onto his back, his head leaning onto the floor behind him as he hissed through his teeth.

The ghost chastised, "Don't lie to me, Plasmius. His entire life has fallen apart, and I happen to know for a fact that he came to _you_ to try picking up the pieces. Now, where is he?"

"I don't know," Vlad groaned, trying to gather the strength to sit up again.

"Where is he?" the ghost repeated angrily, clearly unconvinced.

Vlad could hear the crackle of ghostly electricity as the ghost prepared to attack him again, and he insisted, "I don't know where he is! He left!"

He could hear an irritated growl resonating in the back of the ghost's throat when it asked, "What do you _mean_ he left?"

Finally Vlad managed to lean up enough so that he could look the ghost in the eye, and he glared hatefully at it. Anger flushed the blue from his irises and replaced it with bright red as he specified, "I meant exactly what I said. He left, vanished, flew away; how many different ways do I have to say it? He doesn't want to be here, and he sure as hell didn't tell me where he was going!"

"Is that so?" the ghost asked, holding Vlad's even glare for a while, scrutinizing the hybrid's face as though certain the billionaire was lying. Vlad continued to glare right back, refusing to look away, and their staring contest seemed to go on for ages before the ghost finally seemed satisfied. It raised its eyebrows and looked down at the floor.

"That's unfortunate," the ghost muttered as it straightened up and dusted off its hands. Red eyes gazed around at their surroundings—which for the moment consisted of broken slabs of wood and drywall and what Vlad thought might have been part of his coffee table, all suspended above them by an ectoplasmic shield—and the ghost sighed. "It looks like he's trying to stop it," it thought aloud, and Vlad raised an eyebrow at that comment, completely at a loss for what the ghost could have meant. "Stubborn kid. Anyway, I guess I'll have to find him the fashioned way and, sorry, Plasmius, but that means I'll need to keep you out of my way."

Something akin to worry flashed in Vlad's mind and tightened in his chest, and the mostly unfamiliar feeling deepened a bit when the ghost sent him a fanged grin.

"How much weight to you think is above us right now?" the ghost asked with a fake air of casualness, glancing up. "Because I'll tell you, old man, it feels like a _lot_."

The grin on the ghost's face grew wider, and Vlad was about to ask just what on Earth the ghost was getting at, but he was interrupted.

"See ya soon, cheese-head."

With that said, the ghost vanished into thin air, nothing left in its wake except for a plume of green smoke.

… And the shield disappeared with it, sending massive piles of rubble hurtling toward the floor and seconds away from crushing Vlad and almost certainly killing him. A startled gasp escaped him as he panicked and threw his arms over his face, squeezing his eyes shut and projecting his own shield in the hopes that maybe he wouldn't be too late to save himself.

He wasn't, but all of that weight hitting his shield all at once _hurt._ He cried out, the muscles in his arms throbbing as he struggled to maintain it.

_That blasted ghost,_ he thought, exhaling through his nose in both frustration and exertion. That ghost had been absurdly strong.

In fact, if he was being perfectly honest with himself, the power that ghost had held over him had been frightening, almost terrifying… but of course, he was Vlad Plasmius, and he was never being perfectly honest with himself. Just like he was lying here under tons of rubble, arms tensed painfully above him as he let out his breath in huffs, all the while convincing himself that he could get out of this. He was far too weak right now for teleportation, and the muscles in his upper arms felt like they might tear at the seams any minute now, but he could get out of this. If nothing else, it would be well worth getting out of here just to see the surprised look on that ghost's face before he ripped it apart. Now that was a wonderful thought.

All he had to do was push the shield up and outward. _If I could just… _he thought, willing his shield to inch upward, _get it… to move…_

The shield shifted slightly, and although Vlad couldn't see past his own crossed forearms he could hear something responding to the movement and tumbling off the pile of rubble. It must have been something big judging by the crash it made somewhere to Vlad's left, but damned if it didn't feel like exactly the same weight was still sitting on top of his shield.

He gritted his teeth and pushed, his arms actually beginning to shake from exertion, but the shield refuse to budge another inch. He kept it up for about five minutes that he swore felt like an eternity, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that brute force was not going to work here.

Maybe he could become intangible and sink through the floor. Hitting the next floor down would hurt, but it would be far preferable to being crushed.

He bit his lip. To become intangible in this weak state, he would have to let go of the shield. And even then, would he have the strength to do it…?

Well, there was one way to find out. Vlad clenched his fists tightly and took in a deep breath, his eyes glaring forward in determination. He took one more breath to steel himself and then relinquished his hold on the shield.

Again gravity pulled the rubble down, his impending doom hurtling it toward him at impossible speeds, and Vlad desperately willed himself to fade from the physical world. For an instant every nerve ending tingled with the sensation of intangibility, and for that split second Vlad felt his hopes rise and was certain this would work, but then, just as abruptly as it had come, the feeling vanished.

The feeling of disappointment was quickly and completely overrun by panic. His arms still braced tensely over his face, Vlad reformed a shield no more than six inches above them. The collapsing building collided with his shield again, and this time his shield could not quite handle the pressure, and it fell down a few inches until it was so close that Vlad could feel the static of his own ghostly energy raising the hairs on his arms.

He should not have tried to go intangible, he decided, but he made the conscious decision not to dwell on it.

He had to get out of here, or at least had to buy himself some time. His arms were shaking in earnest now, and he could barely stand to keep them above his face. He squeezed his eyes shut and took in slow, shaky breaths, trying to will some strength back into his limbs, but to no avail. His crossed forearms lowered until they were resting against his forehead, his hands still curled tightly into fists.

He stayed there for longer than he would have thought possible; he just kept thinking, _keep the shield up for five more minutes, just five more minutes_, over and over until he was certain his body could take no more, and then he would force himself to keep it up for another five minutes. Just how long he managed to stay there, keeping the massive piles of rubble held at bay just inches above his face, he was unsure. It was probably only twenty minutes or so, but it might as well have been weeks.

His eyes were still closed when the weight above him started to lift, and they snapped open in shock. The muted sound of falling debris met his ears, and suddenly light—real daylight, not the ethereal glow of his shield—nearly blinded him.

A voice, muffled as though he was underwater, asked, "Plasmius?"

Slowly but surely the weight lifted from his shield. After another few minutes the last of the rubble fell away, but not until Vlad was absolutely certain that he was safe did he let the ectoplasmic shield fade away into nothing. His forearms remained crossed and rested against his forehead, mostly because he lacked the energy to move them away, but he tiredly opened one eye and peered under the crook of his right elbow.

Daniel was standing there in his ghost form—fourteen years old and short and scrawny like he was _supposed_ to be—and the boy had brought one hand up to scratch the back of his head nervously, ethereal green eyes scanning the room and nose wrinkled as he took in the damage around him.

"So, uh…" he began, but trailed off as he looked down at Vlad again and gave him a once-over to assess whatever damage the older hybrid had taken. He winced. "I guess I have some explaining to do, huh?"

**End Chapter 4**


	5. Chapter 5

HEY GUYS GUESS WHAT I'M NOT DEAD!

So sorry for the long wait, no excuses, here's your next chapter! It's a bit shorter than the others have been, but I had to cut it off where I did because of reasons. The next chapter won't be nearly as long of a wait though, promise.

**Chapter 5**

There had been no doubt in Danny's mind, right when he had caught sight of the gigantic chunk of his archenemy's castle that had been pulverized and had crumbled down to leave a gaping hole in the architecture, that the blast had been the work of a ghostly wail. From his position outside the castle, he could see at least a dozen different rooms with one or more of their walls ripped away, leaving their furniture and carpets exposed to the elements. Wood and plaster and drywall and bricks were e_verywhere_, and at the heart of the damage—right around where the wail had probably originated—was a room that was almost completely destroyed, not a bit of recognizable furniture anywhere. This was the room he found himself floating toward now.

This meant two things. One, this was undeniable proof that he was going to have to face and beat down his older evil self for the second time—after all, Danny had never before seen a ghost that could replicate his ghostly wail, so it was just about impossible that this had been caused by another ghost—and this time he had to do it without any sort of element of surprise.

Great. Just great.

This also meant he would have to come up with some sort of explanation when he eventually dug Plasmius, who he could just barely sense using his ghost powers, out from underneath all that rubble.

Fan-freaking-tastic.

He wasn't sure which was worse, and really, part of him wanted to forget about Vlad, to just ignore his ghost sense tugging at him and leave the older halfa there. He could track down his super powerful doppelganger on his own, and in fact, it would be simpler without his stubborn, arrogant, fruit-loop archenemy interfering.

It was sorely tempting.

Seconds later, though, he sighed and turned his open palms toward a particularly large mound of broken tiles and drywall and wood, summoning the energy to move it all out of the way. Fruit loop or not, archenemy or not, that much weight was enough to crush Plasmius once his ghost shield gave out, and Danny couldn't just leave him to his fate. It was a bit difficult considering the sheer weight of the rubble he was trying to move, but luckily it wasn't long before the faintly glowing magenta of a ghost shield came into view, at first just a pinprick of light showing through the cracks in the debris.

When he finally managed to move everything off of the older halfa, the shield slowly flickered away into nothing. Danny nervously scratched the back of his head, wincing as he looked his archenemy over. Plasmius' forearms were crossed and resting against his head, but even though Danny couldn't see his face, he could certainly see the rest of the older halfa, and it wasn't pretty. The guy looked awful.

"So, uh…" he began. "I guess I have some explaining to do, huh?"

There was a pause, and Danny thought for a moment that Plasmius might have been unconscious, but then he shifted slowly, his arms moving just a bit so that there was a space through which he could glare pointedly in Danny's direction. His eyes were bloodshot. The teenager winced again.

"You _guess?_"

_Alright, maybe I should have worded that differently._

"It's… It's an expression," Danny muttered, allowing himself to transform back to his human form now that he was no longer really using his ghost powers. He dropped his hands to his sides and averted Plasmius' glare in favor of, well, just about anything else. He gazed around at their surroundings, seeing what probably used to be a very ornate room until his older self had been let loose on it. The damage shouldn't be a problem, really; he was sure Plasmius had more than enough money to replace everything that had been destroyed and rebuild the walls. In fact, the guy was a billionaire, so he probably could (and knowing his archenemy, probably _would_) rebuild it even bigger and more obnoxious than it had already—

"Daniel."

Jolted from his thoughts, Danny shook his head, looking back at Plasmius and raising his eyebrows in a silent question. _What?_

"Explanation," Plasmius stated simply. His voice was hoarse, and he coughed, rolling over onto his side and planting one palm on the floor for balance. Danny debated helping Plasmius to his feet, but he quickly dismissed the thought. The fruit loop would probably just get angrier at that, so instead of helping, Danny crossed his arms over his chest and awkwardly kicked at a piece of wood by his feet while he waited.

"What…" Plasmius began, and he let out another cough before he continued, now on his hands and knees and finally beginning to push himself to his feet, "… on _Earth_ is going on?"

"Well, it's kind of a long story."

Plasmius was now standing up, or at least on his feet, hunched over with his hands resting against his knees. Again he glared at Danny, though the look was less venomous than before.

"Daniel, I have just nearly been pulverized by pieces of my own _house_, thanks to a ghost that was apparently far more powerful than I am. Until then I was fairly certain such a ghost did not exist, not to mention one that looked exactly like _you_"—he lifted one hand from his knee to point at Danny before lowering it to rest on his knee again—"with an extra ten years added on, and blue skin and possibly a gratuitous amount of steroids."

He raised his eyebrows, shrugging slightly. He then added dryly, "I'm all ears."

Danny bit the inside of his cheek. "Uh…" he began. How was he supposed to explain all of this? _He _didn't even understand what exactly was going on, but there was no way that a simple 'I don't know' was going to make Plasmius stop staring at him like that. But what could he say? He couldn't lie, because he had never been able to lie to Vlad Masters without eventually getting caught, and in any case, he couldn't think of any plausible explanation for all of this aside from the truth.

"Uh, well…" he tried again, gesturing vaguely with his hands before consciously balling them into fists and shoving them into his pockets. "It's, uh… kind of hard to explain… I mean, it's… er…"

Vlad's eyes narrowed, and he finally manage to pick himself up so that he was standing upright. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at Danny, clearly waiting not-so-patiently for the teenager to stop babbling and start explaining.

And it probably had to do with the way Plasmius was staring at him, but Danny really didn't mean to say what came next.

"He's from the future."

He blurted it out, simply and truthfully, because really it was the first sentence that came to mind.

He instantly regretted it. Not because it made this whole situation seem a lot more cut-and-dry than it actually was, but because immediately after the words came out of his mouth, Plasmius had let out a heavy sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, muttering something that Danny hadn't entirely expected.

"I do not have time for this."

"Wait, what?"

Plasmius turned around and, without answering Danny's question, began to make a slow beeline for the door, which Danny found a bit odd since only the doorframe and some chucks of wall were really left standing. Nonetheless Plasmius headed right for it, weaving around the largest gaping hole in the floor and stepping over chunks of plaster as he went.

"Hey, you're the one who wanted to know!" Danny shouted indignantly, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at his archenemy's retreating back. "I told you what's going on! What's your problem?"

Still Plasmius refused to answer. Danny growled in frustration and stomped after him, transforming into his ghost half as he walked and foregoing the usual 'I'm going ghost!' in favor of shouting, "Hey! I'm not done with you!"

He heard Plasmius mumble something, but it was too quiet to hear. Danny floated right over the hole in the floor, phasing his feet through anything that happened to be in his path, and when Plasmius walked out of the room and turned left down the hallway toward the less destroyed parts of the castle, Danny sprinted through the wall adjacent to the door so that he would emerge right in front of his archenemy.

"Would you just—?" he shouted when he appeared in front of Plasmius, but he was interrupted when his archenemy simply pushed past him, shoving him to the side so that his back hit the wall and marching on his way without a word. Clearly Vlad was not in the mood to stick around and wait for Danny to explain everything.

So, naturally, Danny decided it would be best to teleport in front of him.

"What in the name of—! _Daniel!_"

"Would you just listen to me?!" shouted Danny, and when Plasmius tried to push past him again Danny planted both palms on the older halfa's chest and roughly shoved him backward, to which Plasmius reacted with an angry scowl. "Oh, come on! Is it really so hard to believe that _that_ ghost"—he gestured with a thumb toward the room they had just left—"was actually me from the future?"

Plasmius exhaled through his nose and looked up at the ceiling, shaking his head in exasperation, as if he was asking some higher power for the strength to avoid blasting Danny into another dimension. Then he dropped his gaze until it was even with Danny's and he responded, "Yes. Yes it is."

"But _how?!_ You said yourself that he looked like me, right? You said, 'plus ten years,' didn't you? How do you explain that, huh?!"

"There are all _kinds_ of ways to explain what just happened, Daniel! Some ghosts can shape-shift into any image they desire, and there are others who can project false images into humans' minds! _That_ I can believe, Daniel! But time-travel, that—it is another story entirely! It is scientifically impossible!"

"Scientifically impossible," Danny repeated, his voice sardonic and incredulous at the same time.

"Yes."

"Uh, HELLO?" shouted Danny, waving his hands around to gesture toward himself as he hovered a foot above the ground. "Ghosts are scientifically impossible, too, cheese-head, _especially_ half-ghosts! We are both walking contradictions to science, and you're honestly gonna stand there telling me that time-travel can't be real?"

"Yes! Yes, I am! You are only a freshman in high school, Daniel; you have yet to take any courses in physics. But I can assure you, it is beyond a doubt _impossible_ to travel backward in time!"

It was Danny's turn to take a frustrated breath and try not to blast his archenemy right then and there, because of course, Vlad was wrong. Danny had actually been taking course in physics that very semester, right up until the day he had been plucked from his own timeline and dropped here. So, unbeknownst to Vlad, Danny knew exactly what his archenemy was talking about. He knew that, theoretically, time-travel was supposed to be impossible. And thanks to Clockwork, of course, Danny knew that to be untrue, but he chalked it up to being just another thing that scientists could not yet explain.

He ran a hand through his hair again. "Okay, so you think it's impossible, fine. But do you really think I would just lie about this?" he countered, but then he quickly waved his hands back and forth in a 'forget it' gesture and added, "Don't answer that. The point is that I'm telling the truth. He really is from the future, okay? Can't you just do me a solid and believe me for once?"

The older halfa only let out another sigh, this one more tired than the last, and he explained, "Daniel, for all I know, that ghost purposely planted that idea in your head. You probably think that it was from the future because that is precisely was the ghost wanted you to think. God knows you're already—" he stopped short there, electing to finish his rant with a curt, "Never mind," before he pinched the bridge of his nose again.

Danny's brow furrowed, and he frowned before asking, "That I'm already what, Plasmius?"

"Leave it alone," was the only response he received before his archenemy turned around and headed in the opposite direction down the hall, but Danny was not finished with him yet. He saw the look on Plasmius' face, and he knew exactly what is archenemy was thinking.

Plasmius thought he was losing it.

It would be unfair to blame Vlad for thinking that, Danny knew. Undoubtedly he was still thinking about how Danny had wholeheartedly insisted, just hours ago, that his family was alive. Of course Vlad would have no idea why Danny knew that to be true. Of course Vlad thought Danny was going nuts after losing everyone he had ever cared about. He probably thought the teen was grasping at straws and trying to find some way to get his family back, even if that meant listening to some sort of shape-shifting ghost claiming to be him from the future. Maybe Vlad thought that Danny was just plain mentally unstable.

_Unstable._ Yeah, that sounded like something Vlad would say, and although Danny knew he should not blame the older halfa for thinking it, that thought made him no less annoyed by it. Worse than that, it angered him.

And even worse than _that_, somewhere a little deeper down, it scared him. Because if Vlad thought he was unstable, if Vlad thought he was anything less than absolutely fine, then that was just a small step closer to those godforsaken Ghost Gauntlets being shoved into his chest. At that realization, suddenly it became a lot more important to make Vlad understand what was really going on.

"I'm not crazy."

Plasmius stopped walking away, and there was a pause in which Danny could see the older halfa's shoulders lift as he took in a deep breath before he responded, "Daniel, I never said—"

"You didn't have to," he interjected, and to his utmost annoyance, his voice cracked again. God, he hated that.

Vlad hesitantly turned around to face Danny again, and now that there was considerable distance between them it was somehow more difficult for Danny to angrily raise his voice like he had before.

"I swear I'm not crazy, okay?" he asked. "I'm not."

Plasmius slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks, looking Danny over, and the look he was giving the teen was nothing short of pitying. Of _course_ he didn't believe him. Danny ran both hands through his hair and groaned. How was he supposed to make Vlad believe any of this?

Before he could think of a plausible explanation, though, Vlad spoke up. "Daniel, we'll talk about this another time, alright?" he asked, and he started to turn around again as he explained, "I have to find some way to repair this section of the house, and on top of that, I have to—"

Danny stepped forward and blurted out, "I met that ghost before the Nasty Burger exploded."

It was the last thing he had wanted to get into, because he really, _really_ did not want to open up this can of worms and have to tell Plasmius about how his family had nearly been wiped off the face of the earth five years ago (of course, according to Vlad, they _were_ wiped off the face of the earth, and it was just a few days ago, and Danny wasn't sure whether that made everything worse or better). But he was also running out of options, and while that might have been the last thing he had wanted to say, it was also the only thing that would have just enough impact to make Vlad stop trying to leave and listen to him.

It worked. Vlad turned back around to face the teenager again, and this time his face had lost that half-pitying, half-disbelieving look that was driving Danny nuts.

He looked shocked. "… What was that?"

"You heard me, Plasmius. I met him before the Nasty Burger exploded," Danny repeated. "It's still hard to explain, but he was definitely from the future, and yeah, he is a future version of me, but… He's not. According to him, I wind up that way because of the explosion, but I don't have to. And I don't _want_ to, because you know what? I went into the future, too, and I saw what the world is like with him in it. It's terrible, Vlad, it's all smoking ruins and ghost shields in every building."

Vlad was staring at him, hands still in his pockets, and he was clearly listening intently to every word. Danny took his lack of an objection as an invitation to continue.

"That ghost is everything _bad_ about my ghost half all shoved into one person," he tried to explain.

He elected to leave out the tiny, itsy-bitsy detail that the ghost actually had _Vlad's _ghost half in it, too, because that would just make explaining this twenty times harder—and besides, his older self always seemed to think of himself as just that, an older version of Danny. It never seemed that Plasmius was ever a significant part of him, so Danny elected not to worry over it.

Danny just needed to make Vlad understand what exactly they were dealing with, that was all. He ran a nervous hand through his hair and turned, pressing his back against the hallway wall and sliding down until he was sitting against it. He didn't like saying all of this to Plasmius while the guy had that look on his face, so he stared ahead at the opposite, slightly cracked and partly crumbling wall and continued, "When I found out about Pariah Dark, I thought he was gonna be the worst thing I would ever have had to face. I was wrong, Plasmius. This guy is much, much worse than that. He destroys everything he touches, and he likes it. He _loves_ it. I saw him blow up buildings and overturn cars all over the street with a smile on his face, laughing the whole time. The guy's a complete psychopath…"

He trailed off, suddenly unable to stop recalling the memories now that he was talking about them, and he remembered that day he had traveled into the future and seen Amity Park in ruins. The fires, the explosions, the shattered ghost shields all around… And then he was suddenly thinking of Amity Park when he had been fourteen, when his family and his friends had all been stuck up against that boiling vat at the Nasty Burger, when he had been fighting desperately for his life… for _their _lives… His mom and his dad and Jazz and Tucker and Sam and—

Huh. He had forgotten that Mr. Lancer had been there, too, and he frowned when that thought occurred to him.

He didn't realize that he had fallen silent until he felt a presence next to him, and he glanced to his right, where Plasmius had decided to mimic his actions and press his back against the wall to sit down on the floor. The older halfa's legs stretched out in front of him, and he sighed quietly, staring forward at one of the many crumbling holes in the building instead of looking at the teenager sitting next to him. Danny followed his gaze, and he could see a bit of the castle's surroundings through the hole in the wall, a bit of far-off trees and darkening sky.

"This ghost was not half-human," Plasmius ventured simply. It was not an accusation or a counterpoint. It was a request for more explanation, and Danny was a bit relieved to see that Vlad was at least giving him the time of day.

"Yeah, I know. I…" Danny bit his tongue and lied, "… I don't know what happened to my human half."

Vlad shot him a sideways glance. He clearly did not believe that answer at all, but after a moment he conceded, "Alright," with a reluctant grumble in his voice.

"He's a full ghost, but he _is_ me," Danny attempted to clarify. "I mean—he's not me, he's nothing like me, I just mean—"

"How do you know?" Vlad suddenly interrupted, cutting Danny off short.

"Huh?"

"You said that you do not _have_ to become him. How do you know there is any other option, Daniel? How do you know it is not set in stone?"

Danny blinked, but then his brow furrowed and he responded, "Nothing's set in stone, Plasmius."

"That's an awfully bold claim to make."

"Well, it's true."

"Yes, but how do you know?"

Danny shot him a glare, but Vlad was still looking ahead at the opposite wall. "Do you make it a goal to upset me whenever you get a chance to do it?" he asked angrily before turning to look away again. "Do you think I _want _to turn into that?"

Plasmius seemed pretty unfazed by Danny's annoyance. He answered calmly, "I am _trying_ to get all of my facts straight, Daniel."

"Then get them straight, Plasmius. I'm not turning into him, ever. You got that?"

"Yes, but Daniel, how are you going to—?"

"I don't know, okay?!" shouted Danny, turning his head to send Plasmius another glare. His outburst had provoked Plasmius to make eye contact with him for the first time since they had sat down, and Danny could feel his eyes burning green. He looked away again and continued, "I don't know how I'm gonna stop him, okay? He's stronger than me, he's faster, he's…" _He scares me._ Danny took a steadying breath. He kept talking, but now he was thinking aloud more than actually talking to Plasmius, his head resting in one hand and his elbow resting on one bent knee. "He wants me to turn into him. That's why he's here, out of his own timeline. He wants to make sure it happens, but I won't let him. I don't care what I have to do."

Again, as clearly as though it had _actually_ been yesterday, he found himself reliving his heart pounding struggle against his older self all those years ago. He could remember his parents and his sister and Sam and Tucker and Mr. Lancer, all staring wide-eyed at him and all of them looking as terrified as he had felt. Danny closed his eyes and pressed his thumb and forefinger against them, bringing them together to pinch the bridge of his nose for a second before he brought his hand down to rest on his lap. "I promised them. I _promised_ them I wouldn't turn into that. I can't—I can't break that promise, not now. He's powerful, but I beat him once. I can do it again."

God, he could practically hear the uncertainty in his own voice, the slight tremor at the end of his sentence, the way his stupid prepubescent voice nearly cracked again halfway through the word _can't_. It was either his fourteen-year-old voice betraying him, or it was nerves. Probably both.

But how could he defeat his older, evil self again? He had barely managed it all those years ago with his ghostly wail, and that was only with the element of surprise on his side.

Maybe with his nineteen-year-old body he would have a fighting chance… but like this? He was probably not even five and a half feet tall, and definitely no more than 110 pounds. He could barely fly faster than 120 miles per hour, and teleporting farther than twenty feet made him nauseous.

How on earth was he supposed to do this?

And better yet, even if he defeated his older self, what then? How could he get home, back to his own timeline? Would he be stuck here forever, in a world where his parents and sister and friends were all dead? He was practically an adult, suddenly thrust back into not just his childhood but a horrifically nightmarish version of it.

All of these thoughts, this uncertainty, flitted through his mind in the span of a few seconds, and he let out a defeated breath, leaning forward and resting his head in his hands. He stayed that way for a while, just breathing in and out and trying to focus on that instead of his situation when Vlad spoke up.

"Well," the older man began, his voice a bit quieter than usual, and Danny pulled his head out of his hands just enough to turn and glance at his archenemy. Apparently the older halfa had sensed the uncertainty in Danny's voice, too, because he then looked at Danny and said, "This time you've got my help."

It took a little bit for his words to sink in. Danny just kept looking at him, his head still just barely raised out of his hands, his mouth slightly agape for a minute. Then it hit him, and he let out a little chuckle, a sort of one-syllable puff of air that tugged his lips into a smirk against his will.

Plasmius was offering to help him.

He shook his head in vague disbelief. Plasmius was actually offering his help. There was probably a catch, but Danny found himself profoundly not caring about that for the moment. For now, he had help. Danny looked forward at the hole in the opposite wall again, at the tiny space of trees and sky that was still visible. It was starting to get dark.

Danny smirked and told Plasmius, "You know, that help would've been nice the first time, too, cheese-head."

He could see Plasmius shrug indifferently out of the corner of his eye, and the older halfa responded with a simple, "You never asked for it, little badger."

**End Chapter 5**

Writing these two is fun, especially when they're both out of their comfort zone.

Again, I am so sorry for the long wait, and I'm sorry this chapter's a bit slow. ("What? No fight scene? No Dan? What is this?!") But it had to be that way. As for the unofficial hiatus I just went on, life's been hectic, but writing helps keep me sane and stop me from exploding from all the stress SO here I am. As always, thanks to all of you for supporting my writing! Hugs all around! Don't forget to give me suggestions and critique—I'm always looking to improve—but don't be too mean, I am trying my best here.

Now, about this story: It's not very long; I probably should have mentioned that when I started it. We only have a few chapters left, maybe… three? Four? I don't know, I haven't written them yet, but it shouldn't be much more than that. Another thing I should have mentioned before, and sorry if you weren't ready for this, but it's going to get sad later on. There's going to be some drama later, like… sad in a slightly uplifting way? I don't know really how to explain it without blatantly telling you how it ends. BUT YOU'VE BEEN WARNED. Don't kill me when the sad parts come!


	6. Chapter 6

**I am so, so sorry for the unexpected wait.**

Things have been hectic, BUT the good news is that I have an entire week off from school _and_ work coming up. So I'll be getting a lot of writing done then. Perhaps even getting out the next chapter of this story, but I refuse to make promises anymore for fear that I won't be able to keep them.

Anyway, in case you don't remember the story too well, here's a quick recap!

The story picked up after Phantom Planet, with Danny in college at 19 years old. He woke up one morning, not only 14 years old again and in the past, but in the timeline created in The Ultimate Enemy. He tried to get Clockwork's help, but the Master of Time is MIA. To make matters worse, Dark Dan is on the loose in this timeline, and Danny just _knows_ that his older, evil self is trying to ensure his existence through Danny. So far Dark Dan has attacked Vlad, and it's possible that he may think he succeeded in killing him (why Dark Dan would try to kill Vlad will be revealed later). Danny showed up in time to save Vlad, and he explained almost everything. As far as Vlad knows, Danny is just 14-year-old Danny, having just lost his friends and family, and that this older ghost is from the future. He does _not_ know that Danny is from a future alternate timeline, and he does _not _know that Dark Dan is a culmination of Danny's ghost half and his own.

We left off with Vlad offering his help in defeating Dan.

Here we go!

* * *

**Chapter 6**

"_So… how are we gonna do this?"_

_Vlad attempted to answer, but he let out a long yawn first, his jaw cracking as he did so. He was exhausted. An inconsistent sleep schedule combined with the events of today had really drained him, but as he often told himself, he was nothing if not resilient._

"_Well," he began, stretching out his legs for a second before pushing himself away from the wall and standing up. He dusted some powdered plaster from his pants and suggested, "We should probably attempt to find your future counterpart before he realizes that you're here and comes after us. It would do best to have the element of surprise on our side."_

_He began walking away, down the hallway, without sparing Danny another glance. "Come," he said, gesturing with his hand. "You can use my computer to try finding out where he went."_

* * *

Sadly, the only thing in this building that could actuallyaccess the internet was Vlad's extremely outdated and agonizingly slow computer, despite the fact that he had heaps of money at his disposal to buy a better one. And Danny was _certain_ that it was not because he was just used to his own laptop from five years into the future. This computer was a piece of junk, 2005 or not.

So it had already been a long, boring, fruitless hour, and Danny had spent the entire time busily searching the internet, looking for any unusual news reports.

… And he was about three seconds from chucking the entire desktop out the window.

He was still sitting there, scrolling through pages upon pages of different news websites from all over the world—or at least, _trying to—_when he heard the door behind him creak open.

"Anything?" came Vlad's voice as he shut the door behind him.

"Zip," Danny responded, and he had to fight back a yawn. His eyes were beginning to hurt. He leaned back in the chair and elaborated, "Not a single ghost attack anywhere, which really shouldn't be the case. There should at least be a Box Ghost sighting in Amity or… _something. _But other than the media spotting 'Inviso-Bill' fighting the 'Wisconsin Ghost' earlier—"

"Yes, I still have the bruises from that, by the way—"

"—there's nothing," Danny finished off his sentence, ignoring the interruption but for a roll of his eyes. "No ghost attacks, no mysterious shifts in power to anyone who might have been overshadowed, no nothing. There hasn't even been so much as a natural disaster anywhere in the last two hours."

Vlad didn't respond, since he had probably expected the search to come up empty anyway, and Danny turned around to shoot him a look. The older halfa was holding two mugs of coffee, but Danny ignored that and asked, "You're sure he didn't say anything to you about what his plans were, Plasmius? I mean, villains tend to get pretty mouthy when they're coming up on top in a fight. I would know."

_God knows _you_ never used to shut up, _he thought, but he resisted the urge to say it out loud.

"I'm afraid the answer to that question has not changed, my boy. He only specified that he was looking for you, and since you weren't here at the time I doubt he has reason to think you are now."

"Yeah, I guess," Danny grumbled, turning back to the screen with a disappointed sigh.

He expected Plasmius to tell him whether or not he had finished what _he_ was doing—that is, looking through his underground lab for anything that might help them track down a ghost—but instead he placed a steaming mug down on the desk beside the keyboard, a mug that smelled of very, very strong coffee.

"Now, I know you probably won't like it, but you will most likely need…" he began to explain, but he trailed off as Danny grabbed a hold of the mug without taking his eyes away from the computer screen and began to chug it down, gulp after gulp, until he had finished the entire mug in one swig.

He placed the cup back down on the table, uttered a breathless, "Thanks," and shook his head to shake the grogginess away as he resumed scrolling through pages of news reports. That was _really_ strong coffee—_Black? Ah, who cares, it was good,_ he thought—and Danny wondered what brand it might have been. He could certainly use that in the future. Literally.

"… the energy," Vlad finished his earlier sentence after a moment's pause, distractedly tapping his fingers against his own barely touched mug, and Danny glanced back at his old archenemy just in time to see Vlad casting him a wary look before shaking his head in amusement.

Danny turned back to the computer screen.

After a minute or so of silence, he finally asked, "Did you find what you needed in the lab?"

"No, I'm afraid not," Vlad sighed. "I _had_ been working on plans for a ghost-tracking device a few months ago, but I should have put more effort into the project, I suppose. The blueprints were flawed to the point of uselessness."

"Yeah, well, I'm not making much progress either," Danny grumbled. He sat back and added with more than a little irritation in his voice, "And by the way, your computer reeks."

Vlad shrugged. "I don't use the internet very much. What did you expect?"

"I expect my multi-billionaire archenemy with state-of-the-art lab technology in his basement to at least have a computer that's not straight out of the nineties, Plasmius."

"The nineties were five years ago, Daniel."

"Yeah? Well, that's twenty in computer years."

Vlad let out a little chuckle and sipped at his coffee. He shook his head, looking down at the cream swirling around in his drink for a moment.

"You remind me of your mother sometimes, you know."

It was said so quietly that Danny suspected that Vlad might not have meant to say it out loud. Nonetheless, he did, and Danny didn't say anything at first. He paused, but then he turned a bit and leaned his arm on the back of his chair to raise an eyebrow at Plasmius.

"I do?"

Vlad nodded silently, almost imperceptibly. He was still looking down at his drink, his eyes unfocused. He chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment in thought, but then seconds later he cleared his throat, took another swig of his coffee, and suddenly it was as if he hadn't said anything at all.

"Well," he said with an unaffected smirk, no longer staring down at his drink. He was looking at Danny now with the same haughty look he always carried, not a trace of pensiveness in his expression that had been there only moments ago. "Just came in to see how the search was coming along. I'm going to go see how many of my ghost weapons haven't been demolished yet, and probably try to contact Skulker and find out if there have been any sightings of your doppelganger in the Ghost Zone. You let me know if you find anything, hmm?"

But he had already risen his mug in a half-hearted salute, turned on his heel, and had begun to leave; Danny really had no time to object.

"Yeah," Danny answered quietly with a slow nod, watching Vlad's back as he retreated out of the room. "Yeah, I will."

Vlad phased through the door rather than taking the time to open it, and for a while after he was gone Danny stayed as he was, brow furrowed, his arm still over the back of his seat. He glanced down at the floor, thinking, but ultimately he decided to leave it alone. He shook his head and returned to his search.

… His boring, uneventful, fruitless search.

* * *

Deep in the Ghost Zone, hundreds of miles away from any portal into the real world, where there had once been ghostly plants growing from the ground and ghosts milling about, there was now just scorched dirt. Floating islands were reduced to smoldering clusters of rock. The charred ground stretched out as far as the eye could see, that is, it would have if there had been any eyes around to see it. As it was the only living (or since this was the Ghost Zone, pseudo-living) creatures around were a few blackened leafless trees that spread their gnarled roots into the cracked ground, but even most of these had been ripped up from the dirt, either torn apart or otherwise simply upturned and left to rot.

Usually, even in the absence of its inhabitants, the Ghost Zone emitted a sort of eerie sound, a backdrop of white noise that set most humans on edge the moment they left the real world. But now, deafening silence dropped down like a thick fog, almost as if the Ghost Zone itself had decided to abandon the area altogether.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, there was a ringing.

The ringing was soft, but it pierced through the silence like a flashlight through the dark.

And in fact, the source of the ringing _was_ lighting up, as well. The ringing came from a small cell phone, lighting up and ringing on and on.

There was a pile of what looked to be metal scraps on the ground, although some of the larger remains hinted that the metal had once been part of a mechanical suit of sorts. The still ringing cell phone was strapped to a metal bandolier, and that bandolier was still attached around what might have been the torso of that mechanical suit before the rest of its parts had been ripped off.

_Ring, ring, ring…_

_Ring, ring, ring…_

_Ring, ring, ring…_

_Click._

"Hello. You have reached: 'Skulker! The Ghost Zone's greatest hun—!' Please leave a message at the tone. To leave a call back number, press 9."

_Beep._

"Skulker, I happen to recall buying you this cell phone so that I could reach you whenever I needed to, not so that you could ignore my calls," came the irritated voice of the caller, and his sentence was cut off by a quiet yawn before he continued. "I have reason to believe that there might be a serious threat loose in the Ghost Zone, and I need to know if you have any information about it."

It seemed as if the caller might hang up, but then he spoke again, almost as an afterthought, "In the meantime, stay alert, Skulker." His voice was less irritated now, though still not pleased. "And be _careful_, for your own sake. Call me back."

_Click._

There was silence again.

The silence persisted for several seconds, and then, slowly at first, the ground began to rumble as though from a small earthquake.

And in the distance, a long and drawn out wail echoed through the Ghost Zone.

* * *

Danny was kicking himself.

He had thought for _sure_ that those police officers had confiscated the Fenton Boo-merang when they had combed through his parents' lab for evidence. He had been sure of it. Otherwise, it would have still _been_ in the lab, right? If the Boo-merang wasn't in the lab where it always was, then logic said that someone must have taken it, and Danny had naturally assumed that it had been those two police officers. (And, of course, it _had_ occurred to him that if that were case, he could just break into the police station and take the Boo-merang back, but that was a no go—each and every government-run building in Amity Park had had its walls reinforced with ghost shielding and ghost detectors installed after the whole Pariah Dark incident.)

He had thought that the Boo-merang was no longer an option.

"God, I'm an idiot," he mumbled to himself.

Someone _had _taken the Fenton Boo-merang out of the lab, but it had not occurred to Danny until a few hours into his internet search that it hadn't been the police.

It had been himself.

Danny was unsure why his fourteen-year-old self would have chosen to take the Boo-merang, but he had a few ideas. Revenge for his family was one. Sentiment was another.

Either way, he had just finished rifling through his duffel bag and opening every pocket, kneeling down in the closet of that bedroom he had woken up in this morning, and there it was. Jazz's headband was still tied around the Boo-merang, holding the small note that had saved his and everyone's lives all those years ago tied against it.

He grabbed the note and pulled it out, still holding the Boo-merang in one hand as he unfolded the little piece of paper and read it over. It was exactly as he remembered it.

"_Danny, go to Wisconsin, and you'll find what you need there. Good luck."_

Good luck.

Well, he was certainly going to need that, he thought with dismay. He couldn't help but grin a bit at Jazz's attempt at discreetness, though. Did she really think he wouldn't recognize her handwriting, or at least the headband that she wore literally every day? Even five years later she _still_ wore that thing all the time.

He chuckled to himself and stuffed the note into his pocket as he stood up, and he gave the Fenton Boo-merang a quick once-over. It looked to be more or less untouched, but just to be sure…

"Find Danny Phantom," he spoke to the little device, and he tossed it across the bedroom.

Having been prepared for it, he hastily ducked down when the Boo-merang spun around 180 degrees and began speeding toward his head. He dodged the Boo-merang and then turned on his heel to face it, and he reached out his hand and projected a small ghost shield surrounding the little device. Then, slowly, he brought it toward him so that it wouldn't give him a near-concussion like it usually did.

He released his hold on the ghost shield, letting the Boo-merang fall into his hand, and he gave the device a little smile. So it worked. He frowned, though, noting that the little red light bulb on the Boo-merang's underside was blinking. The battery was dying, but that didn't really matter all that much. He wouldn't need it for long.

After a few moments thinking it over, he decided to leave Jazz's headband tied to it. _Who knows? Maybe it'll be good luck,_ he thought, and he tucked the Boo-merang into his pocket and made his way out the door.

As much as he wanted to just take the Boo-merang, find his evil older self, and get all of this over with… Well, he was still fairly certain that he wouldn't be able to do it on his own, loathe as he was to admit it.

"Plasmius?" he called down the hallway as he stepped out of the room.

He had no idea where the older halfa had run off to, so he let out a slow breath and focused on his ghost sense. It was always harder to sense a person's ghost half if they weren't actually _using_ it—after all, if that weren't the case, he would have known that Plasmius was half ghost the moment he met the guy, and the same went for Danielle.

Nonetheless, once he had honed his ghost sense enough, he found that a person's ghost half was _difficult_ to sense, but not impossible.

_Bingo,_ he thought. Plasmius was definitely not in his ghost form, but he was close by. He was on the floor above Danny… probably a few rooms over? Danny shrugged, transformed, and flew up through the ceiling. He would find out.

"Earth to fruit loop!" he called as he touched down on the carpet in a new hallway. He glanced down the hall to his left, and then to his right. This hallway was decorated with a _ton_ of pictures from Packers' games, each and every one of them signed by some player or another.

He made his way down the hallway to his right, poking his head intangibly through each door as he passed them. He found the theater, which was empty, and a sitting room, which was also empty. The next door he tried wound up leading to a broom closet, which was—of course—empty.

It was not until he tried the fourth door that Danny finally found him.

"Hey, Plasmius, I—" he began as he stepped through the door, but he stopped himself, wincing a bit when he suddenly realized how loud he was talking.

Because Plasmius, although he was sitting at a desk and did _not_ look very comfortable at all, was asleep.

Vlad must have fallen asleep without meaning to do so. He had his arms folded on the desk in front of him, his face buried into the crook of his elbow so that only his hair was visible, and his shoulders and back were moving up and down with every long, steady breath.

For Danny, given that his feet never had to touch the floor as he walked, crossing the room without making another sound was a fairly easy task. He approached on Vlad's left, being careful not to get too close to the older half ghost, but there were tons of papers spread out all over the desk that piqued Danny's interest; papers that were half obscured by Vlad's arms, but still.

Danny looked over the desk. There were two framed pictures propped up on the desk, much less than most people had adorning their studies but much more than Danny had expected of his archenemy. One of the photos was of Plasmius, maybe around ten or so years younger, having his picture taken with—and Danny had to fight the urge to laugh—_literally_ the entire Packers team. Danny wondered if this was taken before or after Plasmius had tried and failed to buy the team, but by the look on his face in the photo, it was probably before. He looked happy; well, Danny corrected himself, as happy as _Vlad_ ever got.

The other picture he recognized. It was the photo of his parents with Plasmius, before he actually _was_ Plasmius, back when they were in college.

Danny quickly chose not to dwell on that picture, nor did he dwell on why Plasmius had decided to dig it up from wherever it had been to display it on his desk. Instead Danny looked down at the papers again, and after giving Vlad a cursory glance to be sure that he was still asleep, the teenager shifted one of the papers to get a better look at it.

What he saw probably should have been expected, but it sent a cold shiver through his spine nonetheless.

"The Last Will and Testament of Mr. Jack and Mrs. Madeline Fenton" headed the top of the paper, and although that cold shiver had traveled down his back and settled to leave an unpleasant weight in his gut, Danny found himself reading over it. Mostly it comprised of paragraphs and paragraphs of legal material, worded so densely that all Danny could really do was skim. The paper was not stapled to any others, but given that the last sentence at the bottom of the page was unfinished, this must not have been the only page. The rest of his parents' will was elsewhere; if Danny had to guess, probably somewhere between Vlad's arms and the desk, more than likely being drooled on at that point.

He looked over the rest of the desk, chewing the inside of his cheek, and his gaze stopped at a single piece of paper half wedged underneath Vlad's right arm, on the far side of the desk. His eyes widened in surprise, eyebrows raised.

There was only a bit of the paper visible, but it was more than enough. _Adoption papers_, he realized. He might have let out a low whistle if he wasn't worried about rousing Plasmius from his sleep.

_Wow,_ he thought, and there really was not a better way to put it. What was there to say? This was Vlad Plasmius, the guy who tried to kill his dad, the guy who nearly doomed all of Amity Park on multiple occasions by releasing powerful ghosts he couldn't control, the guy who tried to melt Danielle into goop, the guy who nearly got Sam _burned at the stake_ in Salem… This was the guy who had rarely ever showed a speck of decency in all the time Danny had known him.

In one timeline Vlad spent the vast majority of his time plotting to kill or blackmail or threaten Danny, and here Vlad was trying to _adopt_ him in this one.

But then again, it shouldn't have been all that surprising. Hadn't that been what Plasmius said, back when Danny had been thrown into the future? That they're deaths made him realize what a fool he'd been…?

Danny's brow creased as he found himself looking at that photo again, the photo with his parents and Vlad grinning at the camera, twenty years younger and innocent and just plain _ignorant_ to everything that would happen to them in such a short time. He frowned, noticing that from the way Plasmius was sitting, he had probably been looking at that photo just before sleep had taken him.

_Figures,_ Danny thought to himself, sending a half-hearted, scolding glare at the back of Vlad's head. _You wait until they die before you start acting like a decent human being. I wish I could say I'm surprised._

He sighed, though. He shouldn't be mad at Plasmius. It was Vlad's stupid fault that he had alienated himself from his only two friends all those years ago, sure, but it wasn't his fault that they died. And Danny forced himself to concede that Vlad really couldn't be blamed for missing them, or for trying to make whatever amends he could.

Because while Danny was willing to go along with all of this and fight his older self until he managed to find a way back to his own timeline, he was still rather stubbornly refusing to believe that his timeline was real. He had a home. He had his parents and his sister. He had Tucker, and maybe even Sam. Heck, even Mr. Lancer could be reached with a quick e-mail. He also had Danielle, and he had his friends at college.

Danny was anything but alone. And whatever was happening in this timeline just was not real, not to him.

But he could not say the same for Plasmius.

_Sorry, cheese-head,_ he thought. _I can't change what's already happened in this timeline, but… Well, maybe I can change what hasn't happened yet._

That much was true. Vlad might have had to live in a world where the only friends he'd ever had were gone, but that did not mean he had to live in a world that was in ruins. He did not have to live in the demolished world the Danny's evil doppelganger planned on creating.

It was then that, in the middle of Danny's train of thought, Plasmius shifted, rolling his shoulders and moving one of his arms out from under his head.

Danny jolted, and maybe it was instinct, but within seconds he was invisible, silently watching Plasmius with wide eyes. When it became clear that the older halfa was, in fact, waking up, Danny dropped down through the floor without a sound.

* * *

The Box Ghost was not happy. He wouldn't have been under many circumstances; after all, one could only be so content after having been locked up in Walker's prison for over a week. But he was more than unhappy. He was frightened. Something was happening, somewhere in the prison where he couldn't see, and it was something bad.

Skulker was supposed to be in the cafeteria but was nowhere to be found, and strangely, Ember seemed more worried about _that_ than about whatever was happening in the prison.

There was a sound coming from somewhere else in the prison, and Ember looked in the direction from which it came. So did all of Walker's guards, she noticed.

It was a scream, but not any scream she recognized. A few moments later, the floors began to shake, and she stumbled for a bit before she found her footing again and stared wide-eyed down one of the hallways that branched out from the cafeteria. The guards were beginning to fall into action now, a few of them floating down the corridor to find out what the source of all that racket was.

Ember really, _really_ wished she still had her guitar, and for not the first time she cursed Walker for confiscating it.

The shaking continued on, and even after the scream died down the rumbling persisted for a few seconds.

When the ground settled, she watched the last few guards leave the cafeteria, and she followed after them without a second thought. As she jogged down the hall, she heard the unmistakable sound of the electrically charged bars on every cell in the prison dying down.

"_WARNING: PRISON CELL SECURITY BREACH. ALL CELLS ARE OPEN. ALL GUARDS REPORT TO STATIONS,_" came a mechanical voice over the intercom.

It was no use. Ghostly prisoners were spilling out of their cells and flooding the hallways by the dozens, far too many to be stopped by Walker's guards, and in any case, the guards all seemed far more preoccupied with finding what had _caused_ the breakout in the first place than with rounding up the already escaped prisoners.

The crowd of prisoners was heading for the front gates of the prison, where there was just a courtyard and a fence that stood between them and the open Ghost Zone.

It was not a coincidence that this was also where the guards were headed to find the source of that scream.

The crowds of ghosts, prisoner and guard alike, burst through the front gates of the prison and began to fill up the courtyard. All of them—or at least, all of the prisoners—would have simply flown straight up and out of the courtyard, into the open space of the Ghost Zone, if not for the glowing green ectoplasmic shield encasing the area and blocking their paths.

"Hey!" Johnny 13 shouted over the collective voices of the rest of the ghosts. "What gives?"

There, hovering above the prisoners and the guards, was a ghost.

Before it occurred to any of them that this new ghost looked just like a ten-years-older version of the half ghost kid, or at least before any of them could point it out to anyone else (because Ember sure as hell noticed right awway—she would recognize that punk anywhere), the ghost tossed something down into the crowd.

The object he tossed was round and white, and it wasn't until the object hit the ground that they realized what it was.

It was Walker's hat.

"Let me make one thing clear," the ghost spoke, and his voice was deep and chilling and resonated through the area in a way that the ghost kid's voice never could. Ember found herself wondering if maybe his resemblance to the ghost kid was a trick. "This prison no longer belongs to Walker."

He lowered himself down into the courtyard, slowly, until his boots touched the ground and he was facing the entire crowd with his hands clasped calmly behind his back.

His mouth split into a wide, fanged grin as he regarded them all like a predator.

"Allow me to introduce you all to your new leader and employer," he told them. "Me."

What came next might have been described as a prison riot, or it might have been described as a defiant outcry of the ghostly prisoners faced with a new, possibly conquerable warden. But what it really was, what really happened when the ghosts all cried out and collectively charged at this new enemy that was the only thing standing between them and freedom…

Well, it was probably better described as a massacre.

* * *

Vlad tucked his head further down, rubbing his eyes across his forearm drowsily as he came back into consciousness. He let out a slow yawn. It was tempting, for a split second, to keep his eyes closed and drift on back to sleep.

Instead, his mind came back to reality a second later, and he lifted his head, looking around the room with widened eyes and occasionally blinking hard to dispel the leftover grogginess. What time was it?

He pulled back his sleeve and checked his watch. _Only an hour, then,_ he thought. Not too long, but he really would have rather not fallen asleep at all. He glanced over at the phone, sitting on the desk, just to his right.

_No new messages._

Vlad frowned. He reached for the phone, hesitated for a moment with his hand hovering over it, and then pulled it off the receiver.

There was no need to dial a number; he pressed the redial button and waited.

_Ring, ring, ring…_

_Ring, ring, ring…_

_Ring, ring, ring…_

_Click._

"Hello. You have—"

Vlad hung up, perhaps a bit more forcefully than necessary. He drummed his fingers over the desk, staring at the phone. _Butter biscuits._

He ran his hands over his face, trying in vain to stifle the worry climbing up his gut, and forced himself not to think about it. Skulker had simply misplaced that cell phone; it certainly wouldn't have been the first time. Vlad could find another one of his ghostly allies, and soon he would have eyes and ears in the Ghost Zone regardless.

He took a slow breath, allowing his face to remain in his hands. The vultures, the ecto-puses, even the blasted Dairy King—they were all nowhere to be seen. There had not been even a blip of ghostly energy in the entire castle since the attack, save for himself and Daniel. But that was fine. At least one of them would return soon, he was sure of it.

… Well, he was fairly sure, anyway.

"Hey, Plasmius?"

He jumped, lifting his head out of his hands and looking at the door. "Ah, yes, Daniel," he answered, and he hastily gathered up the mess of papers scattered across his desk into a single, neat pile. "Come in."

The boy opened the door slowly, poking his head in.

"Any luck?" Vlad asked, allowing himself a small bit of hope, and he folded his hands on the desk in front of him.

"Actually, yeah."

That certainly got his attention, and he straightened in his seat. "Is that so?"

Daniel came into the room and, grinning, pulled something out of his back pocket. At first, Vlad thought that it was some sort of device that was shaped like a boomerang, but then he realized rather quickly that he was wrong. It was not a device shaped like a boomerang; it _was_ a boomerang.

"And," he began, "what exactly do you plan to do with that…?"

The teen tossed the boomerang into the air and caught it. "Do you know what this is, Plasmius?"

Vlad raised an eyebrow at him.

"It's the Fenton Boo-merang," he quickly explained. "My parents made it."

Vlad blinked, and then he asked incredulously, "And they named it the '_Boo_-merang?'"

"Oh, you're one to talk. Should I bring up the Plasmius Maximus? It literally sounds like the name of a butt muscle, dude."

Vlad gave the boy a glare, but there was no venom behind the look. Even he had to admit it was a bit of silly name. Without addressing the jab, though, he asked, "Are you going to tell me what that actually _does_?"

Again the boy tossed the boomerang in the air and caught it. "What it _does_ is track ghosts, Plasmius. And it's good at it, too. I've never met a ghost this thing couldn't track down."

"You've got to be kidding."

"I'm not!"

Vlad stood up, keeping his hands on the desk. "You're telling me that _that _thing"—he pointed at the boomerang—"can track down any ghost? Any ghost at all? That boomerang is the size of my forearm, and the only technology I can see on it is a small light bulb. That doesn't sound very state-of-the-art, Daniel."

"Well, trust me, it canfind him," Daniel insisted. "I've used it plenty of times before."

Vlad was still unconvinced, and he didn't bother to hide his uncertainty.

Daniel stared at him for all of three seconds before he groaned in annoyance and rolled his eyes. "Alright, fine. Don't trust me. I can _show _you," he offered. "Go somewhere."

"Pardon?"

"Go somewhere," Daniel repeated. "Anywhere you want. Teleport. Just not, like, the other side of the world or something. I don't feel like flying that far."

"Why on Earth would I do that?"

"_Because_ I'm going to track you down with this," Daniel explained, holding the boomerang up. He looked at Vlad for a moment, and when he refused to budge, Daniel whined, "Just do it, would you? Humor me."

Vlad regarded the boy for a second, but then he rolled his eyes.

He let out an annoyed huff and transformed into his ghost half in a flash of black light.

"You have five minutes, Daniel," he warned the boy, and then he pulled the bottom corner of his cape up and over his head, disappearing into thin air.

He reappeared about five miles away from the castle, in the middle of the woods. This should do, he figured, and these woods stretched on for thousands of acres. There was no way Daniel was going to find him here unless that boomerang actually did what Daniel claimed it could do.

In the meantime, he leaned his back against a tree, crossing his arms over his chest as he waited.

It really was a nice day out, not a cloud in the sky, and warm for this time of year. He leaned his head back against the tree and gazed up at it. Despite the lack of clouds, something—nothing specific, just a hunch—told him that there was a storm coming.

Still, he was content to look up at the cloudless sky while it lasted.

His heightened senses picked up a faint sound in the distance, and he cocked his head to the side, listening. Whatever it was, it was beeping.

And it was coming closer.

He stepped away from the tree and looked in the direction from which he presumed the sound was coming, narrowing his eyes and shading them with one hand.

_Well, that settles that, I suppose_, he thought to himself as he caught sight of the silver boomerang spinning through the air. It was coming straight for him, and he had to admit he was a bit impressed. What had that been, two minutes? Not even?

He could see Daniel flying speedily behind it, his arms stretched out in front of him as he flew.

Wait.

The boomerang was still coming for him, and it wasn't slowing down—

No sooner had that thought passed his mind than did the boomerang come within inches of colliding with his forehead. Vlad let out a startled shout and hastily ducked, and the boomerang sailed past him.

Daniel touched down on the ground, already laughing, presumably at Vlad's shout, and he glared at the teenager.

"Alright, alright, so it works," he conceded. "But we still need to—_FUDGE BUCKETS!_"

A searing pain erupted in the back of his head, and he doubled over, his hands rushing to cover it. "OW! What in the—?!"

He whipped around to face whatever had just attacked him, only to find the boomerang sitting innocently in the dirt below him. He immediately put two and two together and turned again, sending a pointed glare at Daniel and growling under his breath, ready to tear the teen a new one.

Daniel was laughing still, and in fact he was laughing so hard now that there were tears forming in his eyes, and he had wrapped his arms around his stomach and bent over. "Oh man, that was…" he barely managed to choke out. "That was _great!_ Your—your _face!_"

And just like that, the words that were coming up his throat hit his Adam's apple and died at the tip of his tongue.

After all, with first the Nasty Burger explosion and now this evil ghost on the loose, apparently hell bent on killing him and doing God-knows-what to Daniel… well, in any case, this was definitely the first time he had seen a genuine laugh from Daniel in weeks, so he decided to let it go.

He relinquished his ghost half and continued rubbing at the back of his head, grumbling to himself as he reached down and picked up the boomerang.

"As I was _saying_," he continued. The irritation was still clear in his voice, and although Daniel was still chuckling a bit, he had calmed down enough to listen. "We now have a way to find that ghost, but we still need a course of action. Is he aware of this device?"

"Huh? Oh, well, yeah," Daniel answered. "I think so, anyway. Maybe."

"How helpful," Vlad droned with a roll of his eyes.

"Well, I don't know! I mean, if he remembers the Boo-merang from when he was still, you know, _me,_ then yeah. He knows about it, but he might not remember it. He doesn't really seem to give a crap about anything from when he was human."

"Then we shall assume that he _does_ know about this device, and at the very least that he will recognize it when he sees it," Vlad decided. "Now. Does he have any weaknesses?"

"Er… uh… No," Daniel admitted, albeit reluctantly. He held up his hands in a helpless shrug. "At least none that I've noticed."

Vlad's brow furrowed and he crossed his arms over his chest, still holding the boomerang, and he asked, "How did you defeat him the first time, then? You must have uncovered _something_ that we can use against him. Think."

Daniel shook his head. "I don't know what to tell you, Plasmius," he responded. "The last time, I just… took him by surprise. I came at him with everything I had: the Ghost Gauntlets, the Specter Deflector, the—"

"The what?!" Vlad asked, incredulously. "You mean to tell me that you put that—that _belt_ on him, and he could still keep up the fight?"

The teenager bit his lip and nodded. "And even then I still had to catch him by surprise. You know how he sort of screamed and took out half your house? Yeah, well… I did that. And he didn't see it coming, so that helped."

Now _that_ caught Vlad's attention. His eyes widened a bit and he looked the boy over. "You can do that?"

The boy only nodded.

"That sort of energy expulsion has costs, Daniel. And you don't experience any side effects?" Vlad asked, falling automatically into a logical series of questions. "Light-headedness? Dizziness? Faint—"

"I lose my ghost half," the boy interrupted. "Temporarily, anyway, I can't use my ghost powers after that. It drains me, but he was down for the count after I used it last time, so I just sucked him up into the thermos and it was over with. It didn't really make a difference that I couldn't use my ghost powers anymore."

Vlad nodded.

"Oh, and you might wanna know that he can bust out of a Fenton thermos, too," he added. "So yeah, the thermos is out."

"_Wonderful_," Vlad sighed, but aside from shaking his head in dismay he decided to forget it and get down to business. "Alright, so you know not to use that scream until—"

"Wail," Daniel corrected.

"Pardon?"

"Wail, not scream," he explained. "That's what I call it, a ghostly wail."

Vlad blinked, staring at Daniel, but then he shook his head to avoid commenting on the boy's choice of name; they had already covered that they were _both_ guilty of that on occasion. "Well," he continued, "you know not to use it unless as a last resort. We can't have you suddenly powerless in the middle of a fight."

Daniel nodded, "Makes sense."

"In any case," began Vlad, and he shot a grin at the boy. "I think we have everything we need to send that ghost to… well, _wherever _ghosts go after they die."

"Really?" he asked, and Daniel was looking at him skeptically. "You seriously think we have a shot?"

It was Vlad's turn to toss the boomerang into the air and catch it. "My boy, I think we have _more_ than a 'shot,'" he said. "Meet me in the lab, will you?"

With that, he disappeared in a puff of red smoke.

**End Chapter 5**


End file.
